Running with Scissors
by Breaeden Swordwind
Summary: Its after the battle of Jakin Yue and the three extended, Shani, Crot and Oruga are still alive. What becomes of them in this world of peace? ShaniLunamaria Crot? OrugaMurrue
1. Chapter 1

Well, this is a fanfic I'm writing just for fun. I don't know how long it will be or anything like that but I'll roll with it and see what happens. What I do know is that it will be focused on the lives of the three Extended Pilots from Gundam Seed after the final battle (yes I kept them from dying). I do know that I'm going to pair Shani up with Lunamaria however I don't know about Crot and Oruga so if you have any suggestions I'd be more the willing to listen to them (maybe I might put Oruga with Murrue… haha that would be amusing to write)

"_Why do you want to die?" said a blond woman in a lab coat. He could vaguely recognize her but her name wasn't clicking in his head. It probably wasn't all that important anyway. Everything around her was black and he could not tell if there was ground beneath her but assumed there to be because she seemed to be standing with no difficulty._

_"Because… I can't live. I have no reason to. I just do. I just do." _

_"Why do you want to die?" she asked in the exact same tone and manner like a fragment of digital data with an error in it that cause it to catch and replay in an endless loop._

_"Because I am tired… because I am weak… because I wish to rest"_

_"Why do you want to die?" her voice was soft but it seemed not to have any concern for him, merely curiosity. It was like he was but a lab animal to her. Some strange creature to poke with a stick in order to see which way he would scurry._

_"Because I have nothing to hold onto… if I can not fight then I have no purpose to exist."_

_"Why can't you have a purpose without fighting?" he was almost taken aback by the fact that her question changed. _

_"Because… I can do nothing else… I don't know how to do anything else…"_

The world swirled confusingly as the colors of the room meshed strangely with the blinding light in his eye and twisted around a vortex in the center of his vision. Tattered bits of memory floated about his head, blood coming from a knife wound he had inflicted on someone, charging toward an enemy formation in his mobile suit above some great ocean with his scythe poised, sitting bored in a waiting room, back in that same waiting room doubled over in pain as the withdraw symptoms racked him. He knew these memories were not in order nor were they the entirety of his life up to this point but they were all he could remember at this point.

Instinct, however, took over at this point and he jolted upright, he looked around but it was in vain because his eyes were still to out of focus to make out anything but the barest outlines of the objects around him. At least there didn't seem to be any people. He moved his hand but it refused to budge more then a couple inches in any direction. He knew from feeling that he was bound at the wrist by leather straps but he looked to confirm it anyway. Yep, leather, good quality too, just like home. Now if only his brain would function well enough for him to remember what home was.

Lying back down he decided to remain calm for the time being. There was little he could do out at the moment with his mind as broken up as it currently was so he needed to gather up his thoughts and begin make a concentrated effort to understand the situation.

He lay there for a minute but still his thoughts began to slip quickly and effortlessly between his grasping figures, constantly staying ephemeral and out of touch when he needed them grounded in reality. His mind began to bring up the possibility that he had been drugged. Some sort of depressant that was keeping his mind lazy when he needed it sharp and acute.

Well, his eyes were beginning to focus at least. Just a little bit more now not a whole lot. It was amazing how long this was taking, he wasn't used to this kind of delay in his senses. The strangest part of not being used to it was that he could not for the life of him bring up a memory where they had come into focus quickly, it was just something he took for granted without a series of events that would justify the assumption.

Strange, but it still backed up the explanation that he had been drugged.

He sat up again and looked around the room. There was a large machine next to him emitting a series of annoying beeps, which he had not consciously noted until now. He wished he never had because now it was being obnoxious. The machine had a large screen and on this was a line. Ever time the machine beeped the line would have a series of sharp peaks and valleys appear on it. Also from the machine was a wire that was attached to his bare chest. He was certain that he could identify the machine but his mind was still abandoning him.

Okay this was starting to growing more tiring as he kept failing to identify the machine. It was there in his head but his mind was completely filled with cotton that kept him from finding the name or purpose of the object in front of him. Tiring of this fruitless search he turned his attention to the rest of the room.

The room was of an intermittent size that seemed far more cramped because of all the instruments and furniture it contained. Against one wall was a desk, which had on it several devices that he knew he could name but was unable to. It was a plain desk of sheet steel and was physically attached to the wall such that it was difficult to place an exact point where the desk began and the wall ended.

He was lying on a bed at the approximate center of the room and from on side of it came a light that craned over him and could be moved. He wanted it the push it aside because it had been shining in his eyes when he had woken up. The bed itself was thinly padded with some cushioning wrapped in a fake leather which he could not name.

Not far away from the bed was a stool, similarly cushioned, and with a large amount of weight put on the bottom. Wait…a desk attached to a wall, a stool that was bottom heavy to prevent it from falling over… there was a connection between the two but for the life of him his head would not make the connection. Suddenly, it hit him.

He was on a space ship.

Of course, why hadn't he figured that out earlier? He groaned, his head was aching now. It seemed all that fluff in his head had been softening the blow of a tremendous headache. A headache just now starting to break through.

He heard a distinct metallic airy sound accompanied happily with a loud beeping sound, as if the beep from the machine next to him hadn't been annoying enough. He immediately looked towards the door to see a doctor looking somewhat astonished at him. He stared back at her lazily, not even bothering to fake interest.

She shook her head for but a moment before walking into the room. She had a motherly feeling about her which he could catch on. It was a vague hint in her movements that made her seem to be older and wiser then she actually was but he wasn't fooled by it. She was just another annoyance as far as he was concerned. She looked at him askance from behind a tuft of dark brown hair that had a few threads of gray beginning to appear in it. "Your not supposed to be up for another couple of hours. I imagine your still pretty out of it from the sedatives. Isn't that right…" she looked down at a clipboard that she had in her hands ruffling through the pages until she found the one that she wanted and read was there, "…hmmm… no name"

He his eyes narrowed suspiciously but she could only see one of them as the other was hidden by over hanging hair. She smirked a bit, "But I suppose I shouldn't be to surprised by you being awake already. There are enough strange things about you and your two comrades as it stands. " She looked back to the clip board, "Several unidentified antibodies in the blood stream, enhanced muscle mass, unstable brain parameters, unique proteins that your bodies produce. Quite a list even if you were coordinators but your naturals which makes it even more remarkable."

The young man on the bed continued to look at her lacking any real interest in what she was saying.

"Some drug you had ingested was causing seizures so we had to sedate you until the withdraw was completed." She read from the clipboard going over the data calmly but with some sympathy in her voice, " Still your brain seems to have been decomposing badly and it was unable to perform several bodily functions. So we also injected you with a neuron enhancer, which made it easy for your subconscious functions to be performed. Seems a lot of your brain mass had been diverted to other functions such as reactions and cognitive abilities. Quite amazing really. Never would have thought to meet a Natural that could keep pace with a Coordinator" Toward the end she seemed genuinely impressed but that awe was laced with a undercurrent of bemusement that set him on edge. It seemed a bit to… airy for the situation.

He continued eyeing her cautiously.

"Now, have you had any sudden pain…" she then went through a standard check and he answered no to all her questions even the ones where he would lie by saying no. He wanted this woman to leave him alone. He didn't like people around and preferred to be on his own.

After she had finished she sighed, nodding a bit about how everything seemed to be in order and she then muttered about how she hoped the other two were as calm as him.

He lay back down and waited. There was little else he could do while he waited for the bloody sedative to wear off so he could put some more constructive thinking into his situation. He didn't know whether or not he was in a bad place or not all he knew he was somewhere loaded with some sort of drug which kept him from thinking and in the control of people who felt the need to tie him to a table with leather bonds. Not good signs.

Eventually, his mind began to clear up and his memories started to put themselves back into a more orderly state. He could now remember everything and he immediately recoiled from the memories. They were ugly and stained with blood. He never wanted to feel them again.

However, he slowly began to recall the situation he was in or at least what had happened before this situation had occurred and from that he might be able to figure a little of what was happening. He had been piloting his gundam into battle and had been absolutely demolishing his pathetic opponents with his arcing beam weapon until he had gotten into a fight with a certain opponent and he had been defeated. He remember both his arms getting sliced off as well as his shields rendering him harmless. The enemy had then gone off to other opponents leaving him to be smashed around by stray arms fire. Eventually after getting beaten around for a few long hours and seeing quite a lot of devastation (quite possibly the only thing that kept him from tearing the inside of his gundam apart in frustration… how he loved the sight of devastation) he was knocked unconscious by a missile to his his mobile suits chest cavity. He was glad his power hadn't run out by then. Else he would have been dead without the phase shift armor.

Or maybe he wished that he had been killed. It would have put to an end to a pointless cycle off fighting and pain. He was growing tired of going out to fight only to be out for a few hours before that drug of Azrael's began to fade from his system with incredible pain. He was tired of that life. He didn't mind the killing but being a puppet was more then he could stand.

Besides, since the war was supposed to end after this battle he had really no reason to come out alive from it. Once the war was over he would be sent back to the lab to hang around until he died of old age or some other cause. Peacetime had no use for murderers. What could a person like him do out in this world of peace. He had no skills, no education that would be taken by an employer. He had practically no ability to earn a salary outside of killing people. So was living really a mercy? Frankly he wasn't sure.

Well, at least now that the drugs were out of his system he could remember his name. He was Shani Andras. Now he had to figure out where he was. He looked around again, taking note again of the machine which he now knew was taking his pulse though he still didn't remember what it was called, but he could not determine anything besides that it was similar to his old ship of call, the Dominion, except of a slightly different coloration. This was a bright eye-jarring white while the Dominion had been a drab ignorable gray. However, he had never paid attention to the decorum of these floating hunks of steel and for all he knew a thousand ships could have similar looking sick bays.

Still it was probably an enemy ship otherwise he wouldn't be strapped down like this or if he was strapped down in a friendly ship he would also be in excruciating pain. He looked at the straps closer to see if there was a way he could work them off but it was obvious these were some quality straps and did not appear to have any exploitable weak point. So that left him the option of lying her pondering his sins until his captors decided to deal with him. There most likely decision would be a dissection of him to determine how he was made and maybe a show execution before hand to show the troops the might of the ZAFT forces that. After all they had taken down him, he supposed they had a right to gloat.

He didn't seem to be getting anywhere as it stands so he should rest and wait for an opportunity to make a break for it. He didn't know what he would do once he escape, his Forbidden was probably still out of commission but he could launch an escape pod or maybe swipe some other mobile suit or mobile armor if they had any left in the docking bay.

After waiting for a while longer the door once again open to reveal a rather pretty brown haired woman. She was dressed in an officer's uniform of the Earth Alliance Forces and from the markings he could tell she was a captain. So, he was back in friendly hands? That didn't seem right. Something was off. Maybe Azrael had gotten himself killed and was no longer around to make Shani's life miserable. If he was dead then maybe others with knowledge of the Extendeds were dead as well. That would explain why these people were so surprised with the readings they got from him. Hell, they might just treat him like a normal soldier and let him off.

The woman moved softly to stand next to him, looking down at him from beside the bed. She had a sad look in her eye and her face was puffy and read as though she had been crying but that didn't concern Shani at all. She probably just let someone important to her get killed. Well, she knew the risks when she started caring about that person, death is always a possibility, even outside of war. Shani could not be moved to sympathy.

Still, she managed to hold her composer and Shani had to respect her a bit for that, people who could repress there emotions when the situation demanded it were always strong. She stood there but a breath and then she bowed slightly to him in a respectful greeting. That was different. They definitely didn't know anything about the Extended if they treated him with respect. He could get used to this. He could get used to it more if they treated him with enough respect to leave him the hell alone but right now he needed to know some things so her presence was a tragic necessity. Out of habit, moved his head forward sharply to make sure a large tuft of his pale green hair was covering his eye. He liked having a curtain of hair between him and the person he was talking to.

Raise her head from a bow she introduced herself, "I am Captain Murrue Ramius of the Archangel, the ship you are currently onboard. And you are…?" she asked leaving an opening for him to insert his name..

"Shani Andras" he said not bothering to sound like he cared about what she had to say. Though his interest was piqued. The Archangel was the name of one of the "neutral" enemy ships he had been assigned to destroy. So they had decided to pick him up? He couldn't understand why they would bother.

"You're the pilot of that Gundam we picked up, are you not? I believe yours was the GATX-252." She asked him once again.

Shani was growing impatient with these pointless question he put a hasty edge in his answer, "Yes the Forbidden. What do you want?"

Murrue didn't seemed too bothered by his attitude and continued over him as though he hadn't spoken. "You were captured in battle and I am hear to tell you that we plan to drop you off at the next port unless you have some specific place you would like to return to. In which case we will try to arrange transport to the location. You may also wish to know that both sides are currently signing a peace treaty and that the war is over."

The war is over? Well he knew that would be the case but a mutual agreement was not how he had assumed it would pan out. Azrael was indeed dead for he would never have let it come to that. And a place to return to? Ha! He had no such place. The closest place to home he had was Rodnia Laboratory and he sure as hell didn't want to go back there. But that still left one thing uncertain. "What about my mobile suit?" he asked narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

She seemed to become a bit more cautious as she worded her next sentence, "Your mobile suit has been impounded and will be returned to the Earth Alliance once we finish repairs on it."

This annoyed Shani greatly. It was _his_ mobile suit why should it be turned over to the EAF? "Can't you leave it in my care? It is after all the mobile suit I fought in. I should be allowed to retain it after the war."

Murrue sighed in exasperation, "I was afraid of this. However, the EAF will more then likely want both you and the suit back since you are soldiers. The war is over and we have no right to detain POWs any longer then is necessary.

"I'm not going back there!" Shani barked, " They probably marked me as a casualty already they won't care if I don't come back."

"We can speak of this at another time. You still have time to think. It will be another couple of days before we leave the field of battle as we are currently helping with salvage efforts in the area. You can speak with the other two pilots which we recovered from the battle."

"What mobile suits were they in?" Shani asked already knowing the answer.

"They are the pilots of the GATX-250 and the GATX-251."

The other Extendeds survived as well? That's amusing. Seems that not even a massive space battle with hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides could kill the bioengineered Naturals. Shani nodded and then asked one more question, "Do I have to be strapped down?"

She seemed surprised and her eyes widened in an almost comical fashion. "They haven't unstrapped you already? I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed as she began to fumble at the bonds at his rest, "You were in seizures while you were sleeping and we had to strap you down to prevent you from hurting yourself. The doctors said it was because of a drug withdraw. I told them to unstrap you but they must have forgotten I am so sorry." She hastily removed the leather from his wrists and ankles and Shani merely nodded in acknowledgement.

Captain Ramius then excused herself while Shani stood up and stretched, not feeling to good about what was to come.

"This is both boring and stupid!" yelled Crot in his normal childish fashion. The man was death inside of a mobile suit but outside he was quite immature. Shani had always wonder about how he managed to act like that. Even Oruga had enough pride not to act like a complete idiot.

At the very least Crot could whine quietly that his voice would be drowned out by the loud heavy metal music that was thumping into Shani's eardrums. However it seemed Crot would not be so polite as that. A pity really.

Crot was probably the shortest of the three of them and was currently sitting on the edge of top bunk with his beloved game system in his hands. His skin was tanned and seemed in fact to be of a darker shade then the bright orange he had combed into a flowing sideways spike that always pointed of to his left. Also he was the youngest of the three by a year under Shani and three years behind Oruga. Crot's frame was toward the skinny side but he wasn't quite as lanky as Shani's. He wore a plain yellow t-shirt and his EAF uniform pants.

"Shut up Crot!" yelled Oruga from lying on the bed reading yet another of his junky novels. Shani wasn't exactly averse to reading but the books Oruga read were trash. Horrible war stories that just went through the same clichés over and over. Oruga would probably be better off if he just bought one and reread it time and time again, it would have just as much surprise value.

Oruga, the eldest, was lying on the bottom bunk nursing an injured face he had received from the young Captain after a pure attempt to make a joking pass at her. Oruga was never the most perceptive of the three and probably couldn't tell that Ramius was not in the mood for a man's attentions. Shani had almost wished he had been there for that as it was probably very amusing. He had heard the slap and the shout of "Pervert!" by Murrue but he really wanted to have seen it. It wasn't that Oruga wasn't handsome or anything, with his blonde hair combed back except for two stray hairs he never managed to quite get back. It was just that, when you flirt with woman in morning, a slap is only a for gone conclusion. Oruga was the tallest of the three, barely edging out the younger Shani in height, and he had a similarly leanly muscled build to the other two, save that he was perhaps the strongest of the three.

Shani himself was leaning quietly against one of the bunks in this sleeping quarter area. The Archangel had a few bunks to spare due to casualties and desertions, as he was told, and they had an entire row of bunks to themselves. They had also found their personal affects lying on the bunks and Shani was quite happy to be reunited with his music player. It wasn't like he attached undue significance to it, but after many months of only having his music as a companion, Crot and Oruga didn't count, one grew quite attached to these objects of reprieve.

Shani was between the other two Extendeds both in height and in build. He had a lankiness about him that would give one the impression that he was clumsy, that is until someone actually saw him move. He had a viper grace about him, as though when he moved his bones melted into a sinewy motion. He had the strangest color of hair, it was a pale green almost as though one had mixed an olive color with that of cream. Most of this hair hung down in front of his right eye like a curtain and others could only see his left eye. It was his habit to watch people with a lazy disinterest that followed them wherever they went about the room and combined with his almost cyclopean appearance it gave him a very creepy aura to those not used to it. He wore a muted orange t-shirt over, which was, completely unbuttoned, his old EAF jacket. He like the other two extended wore his regulation pants as well since he had naught else to where. He was also the calmest and quietest of the three, rarely loosing control except in battle. Rare were the times when he would say more then he intended. Far more likely was the chance that he would say much less.

"But it's true! There keeping us cooped up in this crappy ship and there gonna take our mobile suits away and give them back to the EAF! We can't just let this happen!" Crot barked back in aggravation. Of course, Crot was speaking for all of them. They all were angry about loosing their gundams. Shani was attached to his Forbidden, he had figured out all the little tricks that it could do that not even the manufacturer knew about. He had even mastered a few flashy tricks that, while not the most effective methods of killing his opponents, added a little extra show to his moves and instilled more fear in his opponents. If he ever had to get in another mobile suit he didn't like the idea of learning it from scratch. Sure, all the basic movements would be the same, but all pilots knew that each mobile suit had small motions and reactions that could only be done with that suit and it is in mastering these to increase one's own combat ability that true mobile suit dominance is obtained.

"Well, what are we going to do about it? We could swipe our suits easily enough but we'd be attacked by the Archangel as soon as we left the docking bay and I doubt that either the EAF or ZAFT forces would take kindly to three mobiles suits acting independently. They'd blow us out of the sky in moments!" Oruga whispered fiercely, not raising his voice for fear they would be overheard. He was showing higher then usual perceptive ability. Normally, Oruga wasn't nearly this circumspect.

"We could jump of right before reentry into the earth atmosphere. Our mobile suits are capable of atmospheric reentry according to the speaks."

Here Shani spoke, "And if we did land somewhere what then? We would first have to make sure it was far enough away from both ZAFT forces and the EAF. Then would have find a place to store them where we would be able to lay low because they will be searching for us. After that we would need to find enough money to pay for maintenance. And even then it would all be moot because there would be no wars to fight in. So, we would just be stuck with expensive souvenirs." Caustic annoyance dripped from Shani's words as he slowly cut open the underbelly of Crot's idea and left it to rot in the open air.

Crot fumed for a while after that but he had no way to respond. Even he could tell that he was beaten. With that finished they were once left to silent meditation and thinking. At one point Crot left to grab a drink from the vending machine in the crew's break room. Other then that they all stood or sat quietly in there respective places, Oruga lying a bottom bunk, Crot sitting on one of the top bunks playing his obnoxious videogame, and Shani leaning against a wall listening to his music.

Honestly, he wished there was some way that one of Crot's ideas could pan out and they could live there lives out fighting in their gundams but the world was not in a position to provide that. There was always at least a brief peace after a great war if only so much so the two sides could move back into position. He imagined both ZAFT and the Earth Alliance would be recruiting soldier to buff out their ranks as they waited for the next great war. That's it!

Shani looked up from staring at the floor as he often did when in a state of deep thought, "Guys, I think I have plan."

The crew member was walking away now that his work as a guide had come to its conclusion. He didn't seem to be wasting time in his journey away from the three Extended. Seems that not even people who knew nothing about them could find it in their hearts to trust them.

Shani, since it was his idea, had been selected as leader, much to his chagrin. This meant that he had to do the talking and he despised talking with people. He never really saw any great point in it except when it was absolutely necessary. It was necessary now but that didn't mean he would enjoy doing it. His duties as leader also included ringing on the door of Captain Ramius.

Shani pressed the ring button on the keypad below a little monitor next to the door. There was a brief pause because a picture of the captain appeared on the monitor, "Yes, what is it?" her voice said thought slight distorted due to being compressed and given a slightly metallic tinge to it.

"This is the three captured pilots, we wish to speak with you regarding our dismissal from this vessal." Shani replied with his usual disinterest though this time even he would admit he was feigning it.

"Oh? Alright, just give me a moment." The sound cut off and they watched her turn away on the scream and from the movements of her shoulders they could only assume she was doing some minor organizing. After a few moments she turned back and hitting the mike said, "You may come in."

Having received permission Shani pressed the button to open the door and entered the room, followed quickly by Crot and Oruga bringing up the rear and bending his knees a bit so he would be less noticeable behind the other two. The last thing they needed was the Captain remembering his previous actions and getting angry when they desire a talk with her.

The three nodded their heads slightly, not as much respect as was do for an officer of her rank but the most they were willing to give to a normal human who they had not fought personally in combat. Back in the EAF the Extendeds showed no respect what so ever to their superior officers and they sure as hell weren't going to start groveling now.

"Yes? What did you need?" the captain asked after they had stood there for three full seconds without saying anything.

Shani, as he was assigned, took the reigns and addressed her, "Ramius, we have come to ask that we and our mobile suits be handed over to the ZAFT military as deserters. We would then join the ZAFT military if they will have us. We sever all bounds with the EAF and maintain control of our mobile suits as well. You can say that we had already deserted and had gone to PLANT. We need never have been in your control as far as the records are concerned."

Murrue looked thoughtful. She then nodded, "I suppose that would be possible. I will contact PLANT headquarters immediately but with the Chairman dead it may take a while to get the necessary authorization for them to receive you. So you may be here for a while or not very long I all depends on the current state of the chain of command. But you are aware that since you are Naturals there is the danger of prejudice against you within PLANT because of the war. Your lives will probably be much more difficult then they would be on Earth."

"We are aware of that." Shani responded simply. Anything was better then going back to Rodnia Laboratory. He would die before he went back there.

"…Alright.. I suppose that there is nothing I can really do to stop you, that wouldn't be hypocritical being an EAF deserter myself. I'll contact PLANT and inform them of your decision. Afterwards, I'll inform you of the arrangements if PLANT does decide to take you in which is, of course, not guaranteed." Murrue spoke with a bothered sigh on her breath that betrayed her low hopes for getting acquiescence from the ZAFT forces.

The three pilots once more nodded there heads forward with a mumbled "thank you" and turned to leave her office.

Once they were once more in the hallway they all let out the breath they had been holding in the entire time. "Looks like one of your stupid ideas finally worked Shani. Its about freaking time." Shani rolled his eyes in response to Oruga's ever-sharp criticism.

"Shut up. We still have to wait and see if ZAFT will even accept us." Shani muttered as he walk toward the ships break room in order to get something to drink.

Shani flipped a switch as he checked to make sure the seal of his space suit was air tight. Forbidden hummed to life and he was glad to see the configurations were just how he had left them. Not for a second had he trusted the mechanics of this accursed ship with his precious mobile suit. A calming sense of inner peace began to float through him as he warmed up the grears and started up all the booster systems, it was like returning to the womb. He was testing out the thrusters when he realized the left still had a bit of a lag from the shrapnel it had taken during the last battle. Recalibrating it was simple enough and once more Forbidden was in top shape.

Oruga and Crot's faces appeared on the screen in quick succession and they both acknowledged that they were ready for take off. The head repairman, a large muscular man with orange-red skin had said that their order of departure via the catapult would be Oruga first, followed by Crot, and Shani last of all. Crot had complained slightly about wanting to go first but Oruga had said that Crot would need to pick him up since his suit was much slower then the other two. Crot of course hated this but it had become such a part of routine that he didn't complain out loud.

"I still can't believe we got a response from them this quickly… we only talked to that woman about this a few hours ago. ZAFT must be pretty desperate." Crot commented for the twentieth time that hour. In all honesty Shani was a bit surprised himself but he refrained from commenting on it seeing as there was no point in doing so. Crot however was not so withdrawn.

"Oruga Sabnak, Lauching!"

Shani leaned back in the cockpit as he silently waited for Crot to launch so that he could begin heading toward the catapault. They had received word from Captain Ramius that they would be guided in by a squad of Jinns to one of the equatorial docking bays of PLANT colony NC-17. ZAFT didn't completely trust the three Extended it seemed, since they deemed it necessary to give them an escort, but the fact they were even taking Naturals in after this bitter war spoke volumes of their desperation. Apparently, the Captain had also sent over the basic schematics of the three gundams that would be turned over with as much detail as the mechanics had been able to put together in such a short time and Shani assumed that had been part of the reason for their quick acceptance. He had been planning to hold the gundam information a bit longer into the negotiations and hopefully catch them unprepared in order to secure a better deal but it appeared to no longer be necessary.

"Crot Buer, launching!"

It was now Shani's turn. He walked his gundam easily toward the catapault and made a few last minute checks of his flight systems before getting confirmations from the Captain to launch. "Shani, Gone" he half yawned out of boredom. His suit was shot out of the belly of the Archangel and as per the conditions of the transfer he kept his Phase Shift armor off. Andras felt that ZAFT was being a bit paranoid if they felt that three gundams were that much of a threat. He chuckled, maybe they were right on the money.

The transference flight was uineventful and left Shani with little else to do but stare out among the shining torches of starlight that swam in the darkening sea. He often wondered what normal people saw in things like this, they would often say how beautiful or moving it was but Shani did not see that. He was too practical, all it was to him were stars annoying him with a pointless glow. Was it better to be silly and pointless like normal people or practical and punctual as himself? He often thought of that. He shook his head. Pointless thoughts. He should be focusing on more important things before he turned all-soft.

They landed easily on the equatorial docking bay and were guided down a series of transportation corridors until they arrived at what appeared to be a military installation. The section of the base they were in at the moment contained several large warehouses made of reinforced concrete and high tension steel. In the distance was a runway for military aircraft and shuttles with adjoining control tower. Finally, there was a large homogenous installation with several barracks surrounding it.

The three pilots were herded into one of the warehouses where their gundams were locked into place against the wall. A bridge came down in front of their cockpits so they could disembark but they were told to wait until instructed to do so. They were also instructed not to speak with one another so Shani was left to stare at the cockpit screen until finally the face of a middle aged, platinum haired woman appeared on the screen. "I would like to be the first to welcome you all to PLANT" she said with a slightly aristocratic nuance to her voice, a subtle inflection that gave Shani the impression she was among the leaders of PLANT, "This past war has caused great pains on both sides, for Naturals and Coordinators, and it is good to see that at least three former soldiers have been able to put past rivalry behind them." Crap. Political speak. He hoped this blew over quickly because he didn't have the patience at this moment. "We would like to use this as part of an announcement of our goodwill toward the Naturals of the Earth Alliance if that is alright with you three."

Shani knew well enough that they would do it whether he approved or not but he would first need to change one minor detail to avoid complication. "That is alright, however, could you put out no information on the mobile suits involved in the defection and only a minimalist coverage of our personal data. They have probably already marked us as casualties of war and complications would arise if they felt we were still alive. More so if we were in the ZAFT forces."

Complications was an understatement. It could spark a huge political scandal if not a new war as the EAF would do all in its power to prevent information on Rodnia Laboratory from leaking to PLANT. If PLANT found out they could attack the Alliance for war crimes and unethical treatment of humans. Any sort of support the EAF might have from the people of Earth would soon dissipate except for perhaps the most extreme of the Blue Cosmos movement. Shani didn't care about any of the Extended still in Rodnia, they could suffer for all he cared, but it didn't seem worth all the complications. He, Crot, and Oruga would all be dragged out in front of a bunch of cameras, paraded around like some sort of great heroic survivors, and then be asked a bunch of annoying questions. Not only that but he also figured more then a couple Blue Cosmos sycophants would be gunning for their heads and he didn't feel like putting up with that. All in all, better if Rodnia stayed buried in the shadows.

"That seems reasonable enough." The woman said but her tone indicated a vague suspicion. Not surprising, she was a politician, she lived to figure out motivations. "Well, you three will be station here with the students of the academy until we have a clearer idea of your capabilities. We will have some exams for you over the next couple weeks but they won't start till the day after tomorrow so rest up." Shani nodded. The academy must have been that nondescript building surrounded by barracks. "You are dismissed. There should be a sergeant waiting for you after you disembark from your gundams who will assign you your barrack."

This plan had started while they had been sitting and killing time amidst a row of bunk beds and they were now at yet another group of bunk beds in a different barrack. This was somewhat depressing. Crot was rolled over on his bed trying to get some sleep and Oruga was reading his book by lamplight. Shani was standing alone listening to music as usual. Gradually a pang of hunger began to creep up on him. He hadn't eaten anything since they were on the Archangel so he decided to step out of their room and find something to eat.

The room they had been assigned to wasn't bad it had enough beds for eight people though there were currently only three assigned there, which was of course the Extendeds. The entire installation appeared to be undermanned due to casualties from the war, especially the academy barracks because many of the pilots who were ready to see combat had been taken out of the academy prematurely in order to fight in the final battle. Shani supposed that this was a good thing because having other pilots in the same room as them would have only caused complications. Before leaving he took off his EAF jacket just to be on the safe side. That article of clothing would also cause complications.

As he stepped out of the barracks there was, of course, the omnipresent slight wind of the PLANT facility. It was a synthetic breeze that was used to maintain climate control throughout the colony and allow air circulation. It was not a strong gust but was noticeable as it blew hair that normally covered his left eye so that is it bent back around the side of his head. He wasn't paying a great deal of attention to where he was walking though, preferring to amble around in search of a place to eat while becoming acquainted with the terrain.

The music he was listening to had just pasted the middle eight and was moving quickly towards a crescendo. The words played inside his head as he walk along the sidewalk towards the central academy building, hoping to find a cafeteria of some kind where he could get some food.

_Two-headed Boy  
All floating in glass  
The sun it has past  
Now its blacker then black  
I can see as you tap on your jar  
And I am listening to hear where you are  
And I am listening to hear where you are _

The music cut off as he passed a park. It was dark within it and it seemed that the only street light within was shining on a bench where an old man was curled up inside a coat many sizes to large for his body. Shani looked at the man for a moment before going back to surveying the rest of the park in boredom.

He stumbled backwards when he impacted something and immediately extended his hands to steady himself. However, what he gripped was falling in the opposite direction but fortunately he was able to maintain his balance well enough to prevent any further disasters from occurring. He could instantly tell from his touch that what he had bumped into was a person for he could feel the fabric of the persons cloths. He immediately turned to see who it was and was mildly surprised to see a girl about his age with the strangest shade of short burgundy hair. She had gripped his arms at the elbow to steady herself and now that she was once more in control of her body she let go of him with an nervous grin. "I'm s-so s-sorry!" she half stuttered.

"Tch… whatever its nothing…" Shani said with his usual disinterest.

"No, no, no I really am sorry I just sort of zoned out looking at the park over there… its so beautiful this time of night." She insisted before slowly letting her voice fade to a sigh.

Shani knew of course that fault would have to have been assigned to both parties as he was also not paying attention but he didn't want to spend the time necessary to convince this woman of that. That's when she noticed her green ZAFT soldiers uniform as well as her cadets stripe. She was probably stationed here and she would know where to get food. "Hn… Do you know where to get food at this hour?" Shani asked.

She smiled a bit, happy, it seemed, to be away from the topic of their unfortunate collision. "Oh you can just go through that door" she said pointing to the front door of the academy building "then you just take your first left and your in the cafeteria. They'll give you food free of charge until 10 when it closes. However its not the best so if you have the money I suggest going off of base." His head moved in a nodding motion and though he understood one would think it more an automatic gesture to speed up the conversation then an actual indication of comprehension.

"But where's your uniform!" she suddenly exclaimed, "You should know you can't get any food unless your wearing your uniform. Even walking around the base without a uniform on could get you written up."

"I'm new. I haven't received a uniform yet" Shani explained simply.

"A new recruit! And they haven't give you a uniform yet! That battle must have really pushed the administration because normally that's the first thing you get! Here you wait here and I'll run in and get you something." The girl said herding him into the park where he wouldn't be seen.

"This isn't necessary. I'll just go back to my room." Shani choked out as he was pushed along.

"No you won't. Not empty handed. It's the administration's fault you can't get any food and as a member of ZAFT its my responsibility to make sure you get some food." She smiled. Damn, this woman was obnoxious. This was far more effort then he had ever wanted to spend. " I'll be back in a minute, don't go anywhere."

He did consider ditching her and walking back to his room but it didn't seem logical to make enemies this early in his military career especially when he was getting food out of the deal. So he decided to go back to watching the old man in the park. He wondered how that old man had gotten in because he didn't look like a soldier. He just looked like a drunk. But then the man stood up and beneath the brown khaki trench coat he could see a red ZAFT uniform. That drunk was a red shirt! ZAFT must have very low standards. Well that was fine with him. He'd show these people what real talent was. Not pain given by a genetic code but talent born of pain, hardship, and agonizing surgical procedures.

It wasn't much longer till the girl came back. She found him into brush of the park and handed him what appeared to be a burger. "It's a cheese burger, nothing on it. I didn't know what you liked so I played it safe." She whispered as he began to unwrap it.

He looked at the pathetic thing. It was of a medium size, easily held in his two hand but it looked like it had been completely drained of juices. "Its sufficient" he said with ambivalence. He took a bite out of it and it was just as dry as anticipated but the taste wasn't too bad. A drink. He should have asked for a drink.

She stood up and walked back out into the sidewalk. He followed her and turned to head back to his dorm. "I didn't catch your name!" he heard her voice say from over his shoulder.

"Shani Andras" he said evenly after he had swallowed the bite he had been chewing. He once more turned away from her and began to walk away.

"I'm Lunamaria!" she called after him, "Maybe I'll see you around sometimes!"

Shani merely waved his left hand over his shoulder in a dismissive gesture.

Song: Two-Headed Boy by Neutral Milk Hotel


	2. Chapter 2

So this is chapter two of this little saga (ha oxymoron). Anyway, I'm fairly certain now that its going to be Oruga and Murrue as another of the pairings. Crack pairings are coming out of the woodwork for this one! Anyway, mostly just setting up in this part as well as fleshing out the different characters. I'm having fun building personalities behind the crazed psycos that Kira fight's known as the Extended. Its quiet intersting. First fight is in this and its most of the chapter sadly. So, read and review!

* * *

Crot sighed once more as he stared at the clock. How long was this supposed to be? Two hours? Three? He wished his ZAFT uniform had a pocket so he could have brought a game to pass the time. Hell, he was almost tempted to actually do this goddamn test, if only to pass the time.

He was stuck in this stuffy room in this annoyingly high necked uniform for another half hour or hour and a half until they were supposed to have finished this annoying written test. As if he was actually going to do some stupid written test! This was the military! The military was about killing people not about... He glanced down at the paper. Not about being able to provide a plan for seizing an enemy territory. Bah! What a nuisance! Plans weren't necessary, kill all the opponents and there is no need for a plan.

He glanced over to his right at Shani who was scribbling away at a diligent pace. Of course, Shani was answering the questions. Shani was laid back and cold most of the time, and while Crot knew he would never admit it, Shani actually somewhat liked tactics. He looked at Shani's paper and saw his answer to the enemy territory question. "Before the attack put sustained bombing on another region near mine's boarder so that the enemy moves its troops to that area. The morning of the attack bomb all communications installations almost to the point of overkill in order to insure their elimination. Send in the quickest mobile suits and mobile armors to eliminate small way stations that might accost the main army while they move towards the more heavily defended targets. Also, use the fast units to quickly secure any lightly guarded resource silos…" It went on for another page. Ugh… how dull. Well, let Shani have his tactics.

Crot looked over at Oruga, who had already finished and was reading his book. Bastard. Having his book while Crot was with out his video game. Where had Oruga put it? Had he stuffed in his collar or something? Maybe he put it in his shirt. Crot had thought of putting his game in there but it didn't seem very secure and if it fell and broke Crot would be in eternal boredom ALL the time. The worst that could happen to Oruga's book if it fell was that he would loose his page.

Crot looked at Oruga's paper, specifically at the enemy territory question. Where Shani's answer had gone on and on Oruga's was brief and simple, "Bomb the enemy until they are weak then move in for the kill." That was probably why Oruga had finished so quickly.

The room they were trapped in was a large auditorium. There was a central platform around which long lines of interconnected desks were aligned. They had just been sent in here to begin there testing for the ZAFT army and here he thought he would get to shoot some guns or pilot a mobile suit but instead they were handed a paper and give two hours to complete it. Stupid.

He looked at the clock again, beginning to become annoyed by Shani's pencil scratchings. Still a while to go. Well, he might as well take a nap. He lay his head down but unfortunately could not sleep do to Shani's ever-present writing.

Eventually though, just when Crot was going to kill Shani, the other Extended stopped writing and Crot watch as he reached into his button up collar and pull out his music player. WHAT THE HELL? Shani managed to sneak his joy in here too! He was the only one who hadn't figured out a way! That must have been why Shani even buttoned his shirt all the way up. Normally he wouldn't care enough to button it. So Shani had used the tight collar to hold it against his neck securely? Goddamn it why didn't he think of that!

It wasn't long after this that the ZAFT officer that had shown them in had come back to say time was up. The man was a red shirt with orange-blonde hair that hung almost to his shoulders. He had introduced himself as Heine some-german-sounding-name, Crot hadn't been paying much attention.

"Ah well its seems you're all finished," Crot almost snickered at this, " so lets move on to the firing range." After he had finished Heine stepped outside, taking it for granted that they would follow him, which they did.

"HELL YEAH!" Crot yelled as he got up and ran after the man, "Finally we get to blow s--- up!" Oruga and Shani got up and both sighed, sauntering after him.

They arrived to find a completely indoor firing range with at least fifty slots for shooters and a huge number of targets and obstacles, as well as a large number of different weapons stored in locked cases across from the range. The weapons ranged from pistols all the way up to missle launchers. It was quite a collection Crot had to admit and he could feel his palm sweat and finger twitch already. Oruga also seemed quite pleased with this development, a vicious smile plastered on his face as he cracked his knuckles, and even the ambivalent Shani was piqued enough to twitch his lip briefly in what would almost be called a smirk. To his credit it was brief. Heine himself had a bit of a messy grin on his face seeing their reactions and he pressed a button. All the cases simultaneously unlocked with an audible click.

"First, we'd like to test you all using your weapon of choice. So choose your best then pick a slot." Heine ordered.

Crot looked around for a while before he saw it. It was a machine pistol, looked to be a CR-17 or 18 with a long but to which held a large magazine. It was glimmering and well polished, its steel giving off a proud glow. He picked up two of them. He always had a particular love for pistols and preferred being in close when he fought. He smirked as he twirled the two weapons on his fingers before flipping one up into the air, catching it behind his back as it fell. Ah, yes he was glad to have his pistols back.

He looked at the other two Extended who were holding the weapons he always remembered them perfering. Oruga had a missle launcher over his shoulder. The tube of it had a three missile magazine sticking out of the top. He also had a couple grenades attached to his belt. Shani's tastes were a bit different. He had with him two rifles. One of them was a bolt-action with a large scope and was definitely for precision sniping while the other was smaller, a semi-automatic assault rifle. On Shani's belt he had a knife.

They each took a slot, Oruga on the far left, Crot two spaces to the right, and Shani on his own closer to the far right side. They all checked there weapons for jams and made sure there was ammo in their clips. After he had finished Crot leaned back against the partition separating his slot from the one adjacent as he waited for Heine to explain the specifics.

Heine gave a satisfactory nod when he was sure all the Naturals were finished with there preparations, "Alright, this is a pretty simple affair. You will have 5 different stages which vary in the amount and positioning of the various pieces of terrain. In each stage five targets will appear for about 2 seconds each. Depending on where you hit the target you will get a certain amount of points, center of the chest and head being, of course, the highest points. You must get a certain number of points in the allotted time to pass the target. Pass as many targets as you can in all the stages. Don't worry if you miss a few targets, we don't expect you to pass more the about 10 targets, depending on weapon, especially since- never mind that. Just don't worry about we haven't had a clean sheet from new recruits."

Crot smirked, "Heheh, well your about to get your first, fool! I'm the best shot you'll ever see!"

Heine rolled his eyes in response to Crot's enthusiasm, but he had an amused smile on his face as he did. The red shirt didn't seem to be offended by Crot's behavior.

Crot set himself up in his slot his left leg forward with his right slightly crouched his arms reaching across his body to aim toward where the targets would be. His left hand was a foot higher then his right to keep it out of the other's field of fire. Patiently he waited.

The first stage started and it was basic with no obstacles. The targets drop at varying distances and alignments. One was far off and left, another center and close, all were easy. He started sleepwalking through his shots and listened to Shani and Oruga's shots. Shani was using his assault rifle, probably saving the sniper rifle for when there were obstacles while Oruga was using one missile per target. They were dummy missiles because Crot didn't hear any explosions but they probably still racked up a lot of points as far as the score was concerned, as long as Oruga hit even a little bit he would most likely pass the target. And at this level Oruga wouldn't hit just a little bit, he would hit dead center, same with Shani. Even with his pistol shooting full auto he hit the center of the head with most of his bullets. He sighed somewhat bored when the first stage ended.

The second stage wasn't much hard with just a waist high wall as the sole obstacle. Crot passed all those targets as well. The third was more challenging with a corner the targets would lean out from, showing only a portion for him to hit. The forth almost made him sweat as a triangular obstruction prevent from getting more then glancing blows, the center completely covered. Shani he could hear had switched over to his sniper rifle and Oruga was using grenades, which he was probably holding and then arching behind the obstruction so he got a cleaner hit. The last one was actually quite difficult, the target would move in and out of protection exposing itself for only a quarter of a second twice per target. But Crot manage to pass the all of the targets and shouted with almost berserk joy.

Heine clapped his hands, "Three clean sheets from three recruits. Amazing, you all must have been aces for the EAF. I especially liked that knife throw at the end Private Andras." A joking smile crept over his face at the last part. Shani had thrown his knife? Show off.

"You know about our connection with the EAF?" Shani said and when he said it Crot suddenly realized that that knowledge was something, which might be incriminating and definitely not something they wanted just floating about.

"As your commanding officer, I am given that priviledge, yes" Heine responded coolly, " however, no one else but those at the top know specifically who the Naturals are that joined us. Every soldier knows that a group did but they don't know who they are or how many of them joined."

The three all nodded. Crot supposed that it would be fine. What was the worse that could happen. He glanced briefly at Oruga, who seemed subdued by Heine's words as he calmly ran his hand over his hair to make sure it was all nicely slicked back, and Shani who was watching from behind his shade of green hair with the same disinterested face he always wore.

Having gotten that out of the way Heine moved on with the weapons exam, "Now we'll move on to the required weapon tests. First will be pistols, then…"

* * *

They had finished the weapons tests easily enough, Crot was somewhat annoyed because he hadn't managed to get a clean sheet with rifles but he was fine because Shani hadn't managed to get a perfect score with either pistols or explosives. Oruga, however, smirked triumphantly. The bastard had managed to do every exam without failing a single target. "Don't get cocky f---nut!" Crot sneered at him.

"What's that, wimp?" Oruga shot back with a vicious, toothy smile. Shani, as he always did, calmly watched them in silence.

"Stop it you two!" Heine shouted over them, loosing his patience a little but regaining it back once he had the Naturals' attention. "You all did extremely well in the weapons exams. Now, however, we shall be moving on to the mobile suit portion of the exam. So if you would come with me, I shall explain it on the way."

Once more, Heine walked off with the assumption that they would follow and, once more, they obliged him. Crot followed after Heine in a half run until he had caught up, Oruga not far behind him moving at a brisk walk. Shani was the last to catch up having slid in at a flowing pace. Having all his charges in hearing range, Heine introduced the exam, "You will be using basic model Ginns for this exam as will your opponents. We don't want you to have an unfair advantage using your superior suits."

Shani cast a brief glance over at Heine, "Wouldn't that put us at a disadvantage since we wouldn't be as familiar with the controls."

Heine nodded, "It will but I'm sure you'll be able to compensate. You will be using weapons that have been specifically redesigned to fire paint cartridges. We even have some missile launchers that fire rockets that shower paint on a radius." Oruga smirked happily at this. "You will be fighting against an equivalent number of cadets from the academy, three of our star pupils in fact. Its simple elimination, first team to loose all its men loses. I will be monitoring the fight from an observation area and if I feel that the number and placement of the paint impacts to be consistent with what would be fatal in a real combat situation I will remotely shut down your suit." They had been walking through a number of dull steel sided hallways. Zaft soldiers of various ranks passed them, sometimes in small groups more often alone, and occasionally one would wave at Heine and he would smile while nodding his head at the person. They stopped at a large steel door and Heine pressed a button and the door opened up into a fair sized hanger with three GINNs standing against one wall. There were a few mechanics walking around but no more then a skeleton crew. Most were hovering around the suits, doing some minor task or another that had probably been done five times already but they redid anyway if only to keep busy. "One more thing before you go out, the area is a 100 by 100 acre square and if the suit senses itself going beyond that it will automatically pilot itself back into the sanctioned zone. This will leave you exposed until it reverts back to manual control, so keep that in mind. There are four large towers that denote the corners of the square so just watch out for those and you should be fine.

"Now! What sort of weaponry do you want for your GINNs?" Heine smiled like a a bestower of candy to children.

* * *

Crot cracked his thumbs in an idle motion as his mobile suit exited the watehouse. He scanned to battle field which consisted of a number of buildings which were all at least taller then the mobile suit itself. They were all completely covered with multiple layers of paint all in varying states of peeling and some had structural damaged caused by the accidental collisions of the academy's pilots who used this place for there testing grounds. Aside from that the map of the area he had been given showed that in the center was a large pyramid structure. It would have a good view of the terrain, invaluable in this labyrinth.

Shani came out after Crot and he was followed by Oruga. Shani's GINN was armed with a large rifle which from the ranting of the mechanic was accurate to within a millimeter. The mechanic had been a middle aged man with a eccentricness about him that came off in the way he would use specific product codes to refer to all the weapons, "This over here is a Valtech 132-83-0098." It was only later that they clarified that he was talking about a shoulder mounted missile launcher.

That missile launcher now rested on the shoulder of Oruga's GINN and in his hands was a larger launcher that fired an equally bigger rocket that would allow him to cover a large radius with paint and if used accurately would be able to get multiple enemies.

Crot himself was equipped with to fully automatic, short-range, compact carbines. He enjoyed being up close with opponents, as did Shani, though Shani only like melee weapons which weren't available since they had a high likely hood of being lethal. That left Shani to choose his rifle and gave Crot the enjoyment of having the tornado of close quarters fighting all to himself.

They all paused and individually thought up there basic plans, none asking what the other was planning to do but instead thinking as three isolated individuals in different realms altogether. They all launched up onto the roof of the building and, as one, moved toward the central pyramid. It was obvious to Crot that if they got the center area they would have the height advantage and be able to spot and attack their opponents. It was the best choice, only an idiot would pass it up.

They all moved together, united not by common sentiment but by common choice. There was nothing that held the group together save for the fact that their goals were aligned, no fabric of teamwork or fellow feeling. They were only a team in the nominal respect. Though their mobile suits were together nothing seemed to be in sync.

The light of the faux midday gleamed shimmered across their mobile suits as they approached their objective, occasionally catching it in such a way as to blind the casual observe with its glimmer. The roof tops were relatively free of debris though the occasional one had been collapsed through by some idiot who had failed to use his boosters to soften the landing and had been trapped when the building swallowed him. It gave him only enough time to contemplate his stupidity at allowing himself to come into such a situation before his enemies mercilessly covered him in paint. The three Extended currently piloting their GINNS over the concrete suffered no such fate, being quite capable and experienced pilots they would never make such a foolish mistake because padding their landing had become such a second nature action that they did so even when, strictly speaking, it was not necessary.

The large pyramid that approached them was a tiered structure made from approximately three story high cylanders that were staked on top of on another each about fifteen yard from the edge of the one below giving any mobile suits on them ample space to move around. It, like many other structures, had chucks missing from the walls which the eye would find resting on the ground beneath mournfully wishing to be once more part of the whole that it had been torn from. Their were large windows spaced evenly through out the outlying wall of the structure which dispersed the light they reflected over a wide radius creating a vague haloing effect. The concrete between them did not numb this; blisteringly white they made the light they focused only more painful to the eye, which looked at them.

Crot continued toward the structure before her heard thesound of something locking into place. Turning back he saw Shani had deployed the stabilizer of his rifle, which was located on the barral a bit further up the barrel than the hand used to steady it, and seemed to be setting himself up to snipe. Crot grunted with annoyance. Idiot. The pyramid was the best place to snipe from; its height would be advantageous. Ah well, let Shani be an idiot. That meant Crot would get more fun for himself.

Crot jumped from the last building before the pyramid, there was a large clearing between the two but he was able to clear it with only a single boost. He landed on the second tier and Oruga on the second at a proximately the same point on each circle's circumference. Sparing a final glance towards Shani, he moved around the pyramid keep his eyes alert for any sign of his opponents. Suddenly, he saw them around the bend and the two of them saw him. They opened fire on one another but both sides moved behind the cover of the structures mass. One of Oruga's missiles flew by Crot's vision toward the two but he couldn't tell if it hit or not. A stray thought entered Crot's mind, _didn't Heine say there were three opponents?_

That's when he heard something land above. The main camera located on Crot's GINN's head area craned up to see the barrel of a rifle aimed at it. The rifle was held by a deep crimson GINN. The slot that the opposing GINN's camera looked out from was curved in such a way that it appeared to be smiling at him. Damn.

He heard the shot.

But never felt it. His systems were still running as he looked around the cockpit, his skin tingling with a slight cold sweat, which he would be sure to edit out if he ever told this story. He turned his attention back to the GINN. It stood there a moment before slumping forward. All sounds and lights that had been emitting from it ceased. Inspecting it he notice a large splotch of paint right over the cockpit. Had that been a real bullet, the pilot would have been dead.

"Goddamn it Shani! Was that you!", Crot shouted angrily as Shani's face appeared on the small subscreen where the boot up graphic and the OS was normally displayed.

"Of course, it was." Shani said with disinterested voice which held in it that insincere passiveness of someone who just wanted to ignore what he was hearing.

"What the hell were you thinking? I could have been shot!" Crot knew he wouldn't have been hit. He had fought beside Shani enough times to know that Shani never missed his target, if he had aimed at that enemy mobile suit he would hit it, a thousand times out of a thousand. Crot just needed to vent some of his frustration.

Oruga cut in briefly to comment that he had checked around the bend and that the two surviving mobile suits had fallen back to the streets. Crot ignored him.

"No you wouldn't have. It was obvious that the pyramid is the optimal location, which meant they would come here as well. It was obviously the perfect place to ambush them. You just led them into my line of fire." Shani had an annoyingly omniscient glimmer in his eye. The bastard knew he had it all figured out. They were fighting cadets. The cadets had been trained to see tactical places on the battle field but were not yet able to take into consideration the fact that the enemy could exploit these locations even without using them. They could see the surface value of the pyramid but not the more subtle possibilities of it. _Damn you, Shani._

Crot moved the controls and jumped up to the top of the pyramid to determine where the two survivors had gone to. He gazed down at the precisely blocked of pattern of the streets and scanned over them looking for movement. He zoomed his camera in out in case he needed a closer look to pick out some subtle indication of his opponent's movement. That's when he saw the GINN raise a large rifle at him.

He boosted backwards just as the shot was fired.

It proved unnecessary though, the man missed by a large margin. Ha, they were just a bunch of scrappy cadets. Still, now that he had seen them, he had no more use for the pyramid. His weapons were too inaccurate to be put to be effective from that range. Shani would probably take the sniping position on the top. Crot didn't care either way, all that mattered was he had found the opponent and he was going to get stuck in.

Crot boosted toward the street the street they were on and Oruga followed behind him, knowing Crot had seen the opponents. Shani indeed moved to take the top of the pyramid. They were taking the most logical formation just by acting in their own best interest.

The street was quiet except for the sound of Crot and Oruga's thrusters as they moved forward at full speed. The enemies had been farther down but Crot kept scanning for an ambush just in case. He didn't trust them not to have an ambushed set up on one of the roof tops or on one of the side streets that cut across the street the Extendeds were on now. Suddenly, shots came from their left flank but Crot was able to boost past without damage and Oruga managed to stop before. Crot leaned his mobile suit against the wall and then pivoted to bring both of his carbines to bear, opening a torrent of bullets.

The GINN on the left, blazing white in the light, ducked behind cover narrowly avoiding both Crot's bullets and a shot which from its trajectory was from Shani. The other, a dull green, followed suit. Crot kept firing holding them pinned while Oruga brought his larger missile launcher to bear. The older Natural fired a rocket so that it impacted near the left corner of the building, spraying the entire area within a twenty foot radius with paint. Crot stopped firing and stepped back behind cover to reload.

Crot heard the sound of a thruster jetting away, and turned the corner again. The enemy hadn't started firing on them so they had probably fallen back. Crot plunged forward and as soon as he reached the opposite he aimed his rifles to both the left and right. There was nothing on the right. On the left, however, was the white mobile suit. It had been completely covered with paint from Oruga's missile. That left only one and he was quickly getting away.

Suddenly he saw the last remaining opponent jump into the air a few streets down and open fire. Crot avoided the shots and dashed after his opponent firing at him all the while. The scenery blurred together into a single streak of ugly browns, tans and grays of the passing buildings as he surged forward. He could feel the force of inertia pushing him tight against the seat. But this was nothing, he could take more than this little inconvenience.

"Shoot below him." Shani's voice said as his face joined it from the screen. "Keep guiding him north but shoot under him so he can't land."

"Shut you mouth!" Crot snarled, not wanting to be distracted, "I will do what I want, and you can't say a thing about it!" His eyes bulged angrily and the screen had a small splattering of spittle.

"Just do it!" Shani shouted back, though he did it with more control and seemed not to loose the sense of control that oozed from him. This was even more annoying then when they had been forced to take drug, Crot had forgotten its name if he had ever been told, and they had all been out of control psychopaths. Now they were just calm psychopaths.

Crot grumbled and continued to shoot as his opponent. Unconsciously, he had begun to aim at the legs.

The pursuit continued until the enemy turned around to shoot at him again. Crot's eyes widened when suddenly the opponent stopped in midair. His boosters switched direction and he froze in midair. Before he slowly floated towards Crot. Realizing what had happened Crot covered his opponent with paint, shutting him down. Damn you, Shani!

Looking out of the corners of his eyes he saw the two towers. Just as expected.

"_One more thing before you go out, the area is a 100 by 100 acre square and if the suit senses itself going beyond that it will automatically pilot itself back into the sanctioned zone. This will leave you exposed until it reverts back to manual control, so keep that in mind. There are four large towers that denote the corners of the square so just watch out for those and you should be fine."_ Shani had noticed the towers and the fool had let himself be herded right into the barrier surrounding the battlefield.

"Good job to the new recruits and well fought on all accounts." Heine's face appeared on the screen, a proud smirk touching his face. "That was quite impressive. I had heard some rumors from above about your skills but you truly exceeded expetations."

Oruga's face appeared on the screen sporting his own grin, though the tilt of his suggested narcissism. "Of course we won! Did you actually think a bunch of greenhorn punks could actually challenge experienced soldiers?"

"What was that?", another face appeared on screen. It was a boy about Crot's age, maybe a bit older. Black hair drifted over blood-red raging eyes in uncontrolled wisps, all a part of dark face which seemed to have pondered the shadowy parts of life late at night as sleep drifted out reach. His teeth ground against each other to the point of emitting sparks and brow was furrowed, its potentially smooth broken up by both the creases and a bulging vein. "Who are you calling a 'greenhorn'?"

Oruga responded with a prideful scoff. Crot agreed with Oruga on this. These were just a bunch of snot nose brats compared to them. They had been pampered in a junky little academy when they had been putting their necks on the line invading Orb and ZAFT. They were nothing and Crot wasn't about to keep his opinion to himself, "You're inexperienced, get over it!" Crot shot back with only a slight sneer, keeping at least some of his arrogance in check. "We have fought on actual battlefields! Survived where thousands died! You just can't measure up!"

The kid snapped his mouth in almost a biting motion as he spoke, "Who do you think you are, you little s---!"

"That's enough!" Heine broke into the argument and both sides quieted down, though the ZAFT cadet didn't have the pride not to mutter obscenities to himself. It only made him look more the fool.

Heine gave a curt nod after he was sure both sides were finished. "Alright. Both sides head toward the eastern storage building to drop of your GINNs and I will debrief you on the exercise."

Crot groaned, such a bother having to take his suit all the way to some crappy hanger. The suit he had taken done had its power restored and immediately headed toward the warehouse they were supposed to go to. Probably didn't want to stick around at the place of his shaming. So with that thought bring a bit of a smile to his face, Crot headed toward the warehouse.

Moving out of the sunlight and into the shadows of the warehouse, Crot guided his suit to one of the docking slots. When his suit was fully back into it the bracers locked into place. There were three slots on each side, Crot took the left most one on his side, Shani took the center, and Oruga the right. Their opponents took the slots on the opposite side of the building.

The platform descended for them to get off their suits. With a press of a botton, the main screen of the mobile suit turned of and moved up out of the way as the steel it was attached to opened for him to get out of the suit. Once outside he saw Oruga already walking towards him and Shani was very slowly getting out of his; not seeming to care enough to rush. Having congregated they climbed a ladder down to ground level and headed toward the large gate that led out of the warehouse and into the main building. Heine stood their waiting for them.

Across the gulf of the central portion of the storage building they could see the three cadets they had fought. Lagging towards the back with his hand hanging at his sides and his head sunk into his shoulders was the annoying kid from earlier. Crot could feel the punk's eyes trying to bore holes into him. In front was a blond boy. Hair fell over most of his face and stopped only as it rest on top of his shoulders. His uniform was full button and without a crease, unlike the other boy's who had his half unbutton and looking well worn. The last was a girl. Her red hair seemed to set of the green of her uniform with its short black skirt that came to her knees. White stocking rose from her shoes up past her knee and into the recesses of her skirt.

The uniform of all three was green and white with a small insignia to the upper right of the heart. They were fairly plain with a high straight collar unlike the bent ones that the EAF used. As Crot had come to know, the ZAFT collars cut of circulation when fully buttoned but could be used to stash small things and compensate for the uniform's complete lack of pockets. God he hated not having pockets. Why would ZAFT design a uniform without pockets! He sighed turning his thoughts back to Heine who was giving a friendly smile to both sides.

As the two sides approached each other, Crot and Oruga cast a glare at the shadow-haired pilot who gritted his teeth and returned it in kind. That's when he noticed the girl was glance at Shani. Had they met? Or did she just find Shani attractive? May the world be spared if it was the later.

"Okay now." Heine said as the cadets saluted and the extended took their various poses of nonchalance. Crot noticed Shani slip an earbud from his music player into one of his ears and Oruga take out his book, making sure to keep it out of Heine's line of site as he read it. Damn them both. How, he wished he had brought his game. "First, for the cadets, that was very well fought and though you were beaten I hoped you learned something valuable." The cadets nodded politely, "You will of course be given credits for this towards graduation. You are dismissed." The three walked off but not before the obnoxious one made an obscene gesture at Oruga and Crot. Out of Heine's vision of course.

"Now, that the losers are gone what are you gonna do with us?" Oruga sighed, looking up from his book at Heine.

"Well, I was told to send you along to Captain Talia. She will tell you the results of the testing." Heine replied, "here I'll guide you there."

* * *

Shani stood in Captain Talia's and was slouched back a bit, only half paying attention as he stared at the floor. Annoying complications. Talia was an older woman, perhaps in her early thirties, and had light brown hair that seemed to curve around her head like a crescent. Here uniform was straight white with multiple insignias of her rank. Talia went over the test proudly, "You all broke records at the firing range, with special credit to you, Oruga." Oruga smirked with an arrogant grunt of acknowledgement. _Great,_ Shani thought sarcastically with a sigh, _feed his ego more…_

"Also, I was watching your fight with Shinn, Rei, and Lunamaria, the three cadets, and I must say each of you is incredibly skilled. From listening to you chatter I believe that your teamwork could stand some improvement though" She gave them a serious stare to make sure her last point sunk in then moved on, "But over all it was quite impressive. It will be nice to have dependable skilled pilots around, especially with equipped with those suits of yours. Are mechanics tell us they are quite impressive."

"We get our suits back!" Crot shouted not able to hide his delight at the news.

"Well, they are ZAFT property, of course, but you will be given exclusive use of them." Crot punched the air above him, probably exuberant to have his Raider back. To be honest it would be nice to return to the Forbidden's cockpit but Shani wasn't about to let his air of apathy get ruffled by news so long expected as this. "Furthermore, do to orders from the council, based on political reasons I'm sure, you three be placed in your own squad." _Great,_ Shani thought, _we are probably going to get assigned to the academy here or something so that they could be monitored for a while._ The council didn't trust them yet for all the fancy greetings. "You will be assigned to this base and will be going to the ZAFT academy for a few minor courses just to make sure your up to date on things pertinent to being a ZAFT soldier." That was just an excuse of course. The Extended already knew all they needed to know. PLANT just wanted an excuse to keep them here. "You'll probably be reassigned eventually to same place more interesting then an academy but try to take the time you have to relax from the war, I'm sure it was hard on you all. Depending on some other factors we may assign some of the cadets to your unit after graduation, your experience would be highly useful to them." Shani sighed, he hoped it never came to that. None of the three were particularly known for their patience. "Well, I suppose all that remains is to tell you the sergeant of your squad."

Oruga and Crot both immediately jumped up and even Shani's gaze was brought back to the woman from where it had been wandering about the room. "What?" both Oruga and Crot shouted, balling their fists in fury to the point that a large vein appeared on the back of each hand, "We don't need a squad leader. We can handle ourselves"

Talia was bit taken aback by the ferocity of their resistance, but smoothed herself out quickly, "Don't worry I'm sure you won't mind the person I assigned to you to much."

* * *

Shani groaned for the fifth time that hour as he lay on the bunk. He had never been so miserable. _"And so, your sergeant will be… Shani Andras"._ Oh he had fought her, but she kept arguing with him and he eventually gave in. _"You're the most qualified for the position. Your scores on the written exam were beyond exceptional and your awareness on the battlefield was super. You were able to read the opponents move and use the environment to your advantage and the enemies detriment. There is no better choice for the position."_ Of course, Crot and Oruga had agued against the appointment as well, but eventually it got to the point where Talia was threatening to reprimand them if they continued. And they did. So now his first job as sergeant was making sure those to scrubbed the toilets as they were supposed to.

He hated the thought of all the responsibility of being the liaison between the squad and their superiors, not to mention giving orders to Crot and Oruga, two of the most anti-authoritarian people he had ever met. And then there was the paper work, it wasn't going to be enough to warrant giving him an office but it wasn't negligible either. Not ones to make his life easier Crot and Oruga had taken to calling him sergeant with strong mocking undertones. The only up side was that he had gotten out of two classes at the academy, but that was only a pittance.

Life was going to suck now.


	3. Chapter 3

Here is chapter 3 of the continuing Druggie saga. I decided to give the three Extended each a particular crime that caused them to be sent them to summary execution. You'll figure out what they are I'm sure as they are all mentioned in this chapter. Also, I came up with a good idea for why Shani hides his one eye and a past that matches it but the specifics of that won't be revealed until later. Also, I'd like to ask you all if there is any suggestions you may have for how I am portraying the druggies, if you see any problems with my depictions or have any ideas. They would really help me greatly, even if I don't directly include them. I'm still looking for a pairing with Crot. If your not careful I'll go with something really crazy and we don't want that now do we? Finally, keep in mind there WILL be a plot, which you will start seeing the stirrings of in the next chapter if all goes according to plan

A/N: Opinions expressed by Oruga are not those of the author. He is an arrogant bastard. But then thats why we like him.

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Oruga sighed as he sat down on the bench of the lunch table, tugging slightly at the collar of his new red uniform. The psuedo-stone surface of the table was cool to the touch and of a bland texture. The bench was lackadaisically attached to the table with metal pipes, their faint glimmer failing miserably to catch the eye. The surrounding room was of gray linoleum tiles and whitewashed stone walls. Oruga sighed again looking down at the equally ignorable food on his plate. It was some kind of noodle dish in a pale white sauce that made the whole meal look rather sickly. _Prefabricated food, yum _he thought ruefully as he grabbed his fork and began to lift some of the gruel into his mouth.

He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Shani and Crot who were sitting to his left in similar red garb, Crot adjacent and Shani on the far side. The three of them had class together at two and they were just now grabbing lunch at twelve thirty. Some of the other students seemed to be just waking up but Oruga had woken up at seven, shortly after Crot. Shani was the last to wake up, having been up late doing some paper work that his job as Sergeant entailed. While he was still somewhat annoyed that Shani had been chosen to be their leader he was in a way relieved that he wouldn't have to do the paper work. He hated doing that stuff.

Of course, it was a bit of a step down. He had been the "leader" back in the EAF, for whatever that meant. They had all acted independently and so his leadership role and been in title only. Well, he supposed it was better that Shani got the role. It meant that it wouldn't go to Crot and Oruga did not trust that idiot in a leadership position. Besides, Shani was a smart kid, even back in the EAF he had been the smartest. However, he also seemed to have to strongest reaction to the Gamma Glipheptin, and was normally too psychotic during battle to actually use his head. Now, that the drugs were no longer an issue, save for those permenantly imbedded in their systems, Shani had definitely shown some improvement. He was still, of course, no match Oruga, but then no one was.

Oruga went back to watching the annoying fools of the academy go about there lives. Each new person came into focus, different but oddly similar to the person who had come before. It was amazing how bland the human race could sometimes be, everyone complained and fought over how different someone else was but to him they were all weak and annoyingly similar. Sighing he continued to eat while contemplating the worms around him.

Suddenly, he saw a red headed girl sit down across from Shani on the table. Saying hello to Shani and nodding towards Oruga and Crot, she went on to ask Shani how he was liking the academy. Wait. This wasn't right. Why was a _girl _interested in _Shani_? Especially when he, Oruga Sabnak, was sitting not a meter down. Not only was it any girl this girl was _beautiful_, almost as gorgeous as the captain of the starship that had picked them up. Both women were of ample figure, though Ramius had a more mature femininity about here then this flitty young girl that was sitting across from Shani. Both indeed had their charms but Ramius definitely had the spirit too match. His cheek had been sore for hours.

He vaguely recalled the girls face from after their mock training battle. It was a mock battle simply because it was so easy it made a mockery of his talents. It hadn't even stressed him enough to get his large, swollen adrenal gland pumping, when that thing filled his head with all the different chemicals it had been altered to produce, he was truly going full bore. And once his adrenal had started pumping he truly fitted the name "Biological CPU". After such an annoying waste of time it was only natural that he wouldn't be paying attention to his surrounding and any women were going to get passed over by his normally keener eye. He had also still been thinking of all the different ways to maim that annoying boy with the black hair. Now though he took the time to look at her.

Her features were soft enough, feminine to be sure but she seemed have in her bearing more prerogative then the normal woman, not an unusual find in military girls. He had seen a few girls in the EAF and they had the same bearing. Her frame was definitely amply filled and her curves well placed. Lithe and flowing was the form of her arms and legs, almost seeming the float ephemerally on the air. The burgundy hue of her hair was off-set well with flashing sapphire eyes. Not bad by all accounts. However, was a bit too young for him, he had always preferred girls a year or two-older then him

"Fine…" Said Shani eating calmly but not seeming to be particularly interested in talking to the girl across the table from him. Oruga shook his slightly in pity for the younger man's foolishness.

It was at this time that a loud crash was heard through the hall and Oruga's head slid around on his shoulders to look towards it. Trays smashing against the ground had been the gong that signaled to the hall that there was a scuffle breaking out between two students. A brown haired boy of about 16 had another boy pinned to the table. Larger man grabbed the boy on top and pulled him off of the other.

It was at this point that he heard the girl talking to Shani call to someone, "Meyrin, Shinn, Rei! Over here!" Oruga ignored her preferring to continue watching the scuffle, unfortunately by this time it was dying down so he was not remiss in looking back over when he heard new arrivals sit at their table.

"YOU!" said three voices at once. Two of the voices belonged to Crot and Oruga who matched the black haired boy across from them in the speed at which they got to their feet. Both sides stared daggers at the other.

"What are you bastards doing here?" the punk snarled at them, his voice arrogant despite his earlier defeat.

"Were eating! You got a problem with that?" Crot replied with a vicious smirk.

"Besides, worm, you aren't in a position to be telling us what to do!" Oruga barked at the pathetic boy in front of him. So many annoying fools.

"Calm down Shinn." Said the blonde haired boy next to the one called Shinn. The boy spoke with ethereal calmness not of the hustle and bustle world around, but there was a slight under cut of viciousness to it that hovered with his voice forever out of reach.

Shinn shot a glare back at Rei, but sat back down digging into his food with vindictive intent, needing something to distract him from the vicious thoughts that were probably bouncing around his pathetic little skull. Oruga sneered but ultimately sat down and returned to his food without further incident. Annoying little weaklings.

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Lunamaria sighed with relief, she had been worried that the animosity between Shinn and Shani's two friends would break into a fight but Rei's voice of reason had prevented it. Rei had that effect, he always seemed smart and wise when he spoke. She wondered if it was just his voice or if he really was smarter. A matter for another time.

She turned back to Shani who was across from her. He had already finished his food- she had noticed in the corner of her eye that he had been eating straight through the argument between Shinn and the other two, completely uninterested- and was now lazily letting his eye pass across the room. Looking at it she noticed it was a bright shade of purple which, like his green hair, was incredibly unusual and made her wonder how he could have a feature like it.

It had hardly caused her any indecision to sit with Shani since she had taken on the responsibility of acclimating him to the new life of the ZAFT forces, though she had little conscious knowledge of the decision and whatever stray thoughts might have pierced her waking mind she felt no desire to contradict. So she drifted towards Shani in a vague cloud of responsibility and goodwill. Of course, it could not be said that she was ignoring the attractiveness of his features and the calm, cool, dependable manner with which he carried himself, it is only natural that such things would be taken into account by the mind of a teenage girl. However, it was not the primary reason that she consciously decided to aid him but only made her less adverse, if she had been loath to do it at all.

Shani, though, had not seemed to react much to her attempts to reach out to him and help him to adjust- as a matter of fact, it didn't look like he felt out of place at all. Calmly he would respond to whatever questions she had with a grunt or a terse reply when he bothered to use words. His face rarely bore a shadow emotion and his eye would either stare off into space or wander about in apathy. His laid back bearing coincided with the rest of him in its disinterest in the surrounding environment and people would often wonder whether he was aware as he would walk through clumps of people who were speaking rather than going around.

A pall of uncomfortable silence had descending over the table which was broken only by the gentle hum of the ambient chatter of more talkative groups of people. Lunamaria had taken to moving her food into different clumps and arranging it into patterns that only she could decipher, and would occasionally sigh as she combed her mind for subject matter. Her lips eventually started to move with hardly imput from her brain, "So… Shani…um… what class do you have today?"

"PLANT history." Shani replied in monotone.

Lunamaria blink in surprise at getting such an involved response out of him and was quite pleased with the effect the random mewlings of her voice had upon the awkward lull in the "conversation". She was also quite pleased to realize that she was taking this class as well and asked him what time he had it. His second response also gratified her since it was the same time as hers, 2:00, which meant she would be sharing the class with him.

"That's my class! Maybe I can show you where it is if you don't know." She said with a satisfied smile.

"Not necessary." Shani replied not looking at her and her smile slowly faded. Not to be so easily pushed aside she asked him why he didn't need help, " I already found it."

"oh…" she said looking down somewhat sadly.

"What?"

Shani's question struck Lunamaria in an odd way and for a moment she was at a loss for how to respond. His purple eye not seeming to take interest in her, despite the fact he had been moved enough to ask a question, unsettled her and chased away the fleeting ghosts of half-formed explanations for her behavior. The second seemed like nerve-racking eternities as she hovered there in the limbo of the awkward pause seeming in her mind to have long ago embarrassed herself, though if Shani noticed his face did not betray it.

"It's nothing!" she yelped with perhaps a bit more fervor than could bear believability so she decided to cover for her blunder by moving the conversation to a different but related subject she had managed to piece together during the delay, "But, more importantly don't you three need to get familiarized with the base?" This question she directed to the table with a wave of her voice and a small gesture of her left hand.

Crot was the first to respond, his tone indicated sharply his aversion to admitting weakness, "I suppose…"

"Well, then we'll each partner up and we'll show you around!" Lunamaria again said with a hair too much ardor though this time it was negligible.

Each reaction was different, Meyrin perked up with curiosity, Shinn looked wroth (but he didn't matter because Lunamaria wasn't so stupid as to include him in this), Rei had a mild pique of his interest which displayed itself in a small smile, Oruga looked at crosswise, Crot seemed to be working his brain in determining whether this was a good idea, and Shani, as always, let no interest mar his cold demeanor. Shinn threw his opinion in immediately, "I'm not going with one of these bastards!"

"You don't have to," Lunamaria said with a slight upturning of her knows, vindicated in having already prepared for Shinn's protests, "we only need three people so you can go rot in your room."

Shinn grumbled but said nothing. Meyrin, however, had her own misgivings about her sister's ulterior motives, "Why are we doing this, sis? It doesn't seem like you."

Lunamaria blushed slightly at her sister's distrust and brushed the question aside as best she could, "It's our responsibility to help the new recruits, rank not withstanding, to become more familiar with the base." Shinn sneered at hearing mention of the fact the three boys had gotten a higher rank then him without even doing anything. Meyrin did not seemed wholly satisfied with her sister's answer, knowing her penitent for brief infatuations but did not raise these questions in order to save her sister the embarrassment and merely nodded, her red pigtails bobbing slightly.

Rei agreed to the affair rather quickly, having always been the most responsible of the four students, however it took some doing to convince the three recruits. Shani actually agreed relatively quickly, however, it was obvious he didn't really care about anything but the pure functionality of learning his way about the base. Oruga, was resistant but he eventually agreed. Crot took forever but eventually Meyrin and Lunamaria were able to convince him.

"What time and place should we start this and who is with whom?" Rei asked in his practical manner.

"How about right after PLANT history?" Seeing know objections she move onto partners, barely able to hide a smirk of satisfaction, "As for partners… Meyrin you can go with… " she gestured towards the man with the come over who introduced himself as Crot, with a small undertone of bitterness. "…Crot. I'll go with Shani and that leaves Rei to go with…" again she paused letting Oruga introduce himself.

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Lunamaria walked beside Shani down one of the major streets, occasionally moving closer to him to avoid colliding with someone but always returning to a comfortable distance once the person had passed. Shani, if he even noticed, didn't seemed to care, making her wonder if he ever reacted to anything. They came to a cross roads with a roundabout in the center instead of a normal intersection. In the middle of the grassy circle there was a statue of the first Coordinator, George Glenn. She pointed it out to him but he grunted his usual apathetic response. Almost every one she knew loved to visit the statue of Glenn and then she realized why he wouldn't care.

"I'm sorry. This is probably meaningless to you since you're a Natural. I forgot."

"You know?" Shani asked with uncertainty vaguely tinting his words. His mouth then curved in a knowing smirk… "Figured it out, eh? I suppose Crot did blurt it out and our experience gave it away."

Lunamaria smiled at having her suspicion confirmed and the prospect that she might have earned a modicum of respect from Shani, who, if he was at all like his friends, did not give it freely. She looked around quickly to make sure no one was close and whispered in Shani's ear."Yeah, when Crot said we were… "greenhorns"?… I realized that meant he had fighting experience. Obviously he would have gotten that experience in war and that meant you were part of the EAF and thus Naturals. Don't worry though your secret is safe with me. But would you mind answering a question I have?"

Shani looked at her frostily, he sighed a small "tch…" and she could have sworn she saw his breath. "What is it?"

"How did you get so good? Naturals shouldn't be that skilled but you made mince meat out of us and from the rumors you all got perfect scores with you target training. What's the deal with that?" She had led Shani into a back alley as she spoke so that no one would overhear.

"…" For a moment Shani said nothing, his eye closed pensively and he looked to be debating whether or not to tell her. Just when she feared he would brush her off he responded with a curt, blunt answer, "Trained for a long time."

"How? If I knew it would probably be useful for graduating from this academy!"

Shani sighed slightly but Lunamaria was unable to determine what provoked him to do so. "You can't do it…"

"Why not?"

"Because you don't have the time nor the resources to do it" And with that Lunamaria was unable to get anymore information on the matter, Shani completely clamped himself shut. The two of them continued around the colony, Lunamaria occasionally pointing out a landmark or something that might be of interest, such as a particularly good place to get Pizza or some other food or item. By the time Lunamaria decided it was time to start heading back the synthetic sunlight had almost completely faded away and the darkness of night was upon them. She could feel the pangs of hunger that had been developing over the tour begin to coalesce into a full fledged starvation but she was somewhat hesitant to ask Shani if he wanted to get some food lest it seem like she was asking him on a date. No need to send the wrong impression. She glanced to her side at him wondering how he would respond but found that he was no longer there. _Wha? _She hadn't heard him leave and looked around, her head scanning in jerky motions. Fortunately his green hair made him easy to spot amidst the crowd of people, he was walking into a small hole-in-the-wall sandwich joint. It was called S.O.S. for Steven and Otto's Subs. Corny and pathetic as the name was she'd been in there a few times before and it had a decent meatball sub though she had been watching her weight recently and hadn't gone in. Not to mention it was cheaper to get food at the cafeteria.

She followed the Natural into the restaurant; it was a compact place with five tables for four. The décor was little more then stock colors for the food chain, a deep green and a neutral beige. On the far side was a glass-enclosed counter, which held the various ingredients that the staff would use to make the sandwich. Shani was standing in front of it giving his order to a college aged girl who seemed more interested in his lips themselves then the words they were forming. Shani ordered a very simple ham and lettuce on wheat.

"This is where you got off to!" she chastised as she walked up to him, "I thoughtI lost you!" Shani cast her a sidelong glance then grunted to acknowledge her existence but not much more than that, "Why'd you come here?"

"…I was hungry…" Shani replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world, which it was but it wasn't what she had been asking.

"I mean: why here? As in this specific place." She clarified with a groan at have been made to look like a complete idiot. The girl behind the counter had a slight smile on her face and seemed to be enjoying watching Shani make Lunamaria look like an moron.

"safe bet…" Shani replied curtly.

"What do you mean?" What he said hadn't made any sense and had left her completely confused.

"How do you screw up a sandwich?"

"oh…OH! I see… Didn't know any good places to eat so you figured a sandwich couldn't be that bad no matter where it was purchased at, is that right?" Shani nodded in response. The girl behind the counter fixed Shani's meal, occasionally casting a fleeting glance toward him but he didn't seem to be paying any attention to her. Protruding from his ears were a pair of rubber insolated wires trailing down behind his red ZAFT trench coat and into the pocket of a pair of pants he was wearing underneath it. A smirk floated onto Lunamaria's lips as she watched him listening to his music seemingly out of touch with the world around him. She wondered whether or not he would notice if she pushed him from behind or did some other brand of mischief but decided against actually determining the answer to that by test.

After Shani received his food and paid, students and recruits were given a small amount of spending money to live off of, he ambled over to a seat in the corner of the restaurant. He slipped into the seat with a measure of demonic grace and lean back into chair lazily as one of his hands pulled out the sandwich to begin eating. Lunamaria turned back to the girl behind the counter to order her own food, a turkey sandwich with lettuce and black olives on rye bread. She slipped into the seat across from Shani, who didn't react to hear and hardly seemed to even notice that he was eating, so completely had he zoned out of the real world. Every motion was mechanical and separate from his mind, slow and lazy without any prerogative or impulse.

"So…How was life in the EAF?" she asked in an attempt to make conversation with the boy in front of her, a boy not dissimilar from the zombies in bad horror movies. No response came from him as he continued to eat his sandwich and she sighed, realizing he couldn't hear her over the music he was listening to. Gently, she poked him on the forehead with her finger, flashing him a glare when he looked up. He slipped one of his headphones out of his ear and asked what she wanted. She repeated her question, making sure to keep her tone low so that it would not be overheard.

"It sucked" he answered curtly becoming intent on the sandwich in his hands, as though its contours were fascinating and beautiful. A certain sadness tinged his normally apathetic features but it receded from them like a shadow in a summer fog. Lunamaria wasn't complete sure it was there at all. But whether or not there had been emotion on Shani's face. Lunamaria, despite all her best efforts until they parted back at the base, she could not get him to elaborate on why it had sucked.

Finally, they were walking back towards the base, under the blazing street lights creating small islands of light amidst the darkened seas of darkness where lonely people drifted to their own trade winds, when Lunamaria thought up one last question for the taciturn pilot. "What are you hiding behind that bang of hair?" She said with a humorous smile and a playful town on her voice, "…is it a secret?" with this she dropped her voice slightly to give it a psuedo-menacing edge.

Shani put his hand over the eye and bang, as though to make sure that the bang wouldn't be blown out of the way even though the wind in the PLANT was not sufficient to do that.

He never answered.

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_The blonde haired woman in the lab coat stood above him. She sneered at him and her tone was laden with dehumanizing contempt, "What are you seeking here in this world of peace?"_

_"I don't know… I hope to find salvation, I suppose."_

_"What are you seeking here in this world of peace?" she asked again._

_"Hope. I wish to find the sin of hope."_

_"Why do you even bother?" She loomed over him seeming to grow in size until he was no larger then her small toe._

_"Because my body doesn't wish to die so my soul must go along for the ride." _

_"You know you will just commit the sins that were to have you executed in the first place. Commit them all over again."_

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Crot lay back in his chair, letting out a bored yawn that could be heard by everyone, causing the entire class to swivel their heads towards him and the teacher to cast him a disapproving glower. Smiling smugly was Crot's only response, he would never let it be said that he wasn't blatant about being rude.

Honestly, he couldn't understand how he was to be expected to pay attention to a boring instructor of a class in a subject he already knew. The class was on different communication encryption types and how to crack them, along with firewalls for computers and accessing protected data. All stuff he was familiar with. Hell, it was doing stuff like this that had gotten him court marshaled in the EAF and sentenced to execution. He only kept his head by making a bargain with a devil. A devil by the name of Muruta Azrael. 

He supposed that this class was better then the other options he had for his elective class but it still bored him, only difference being this he was bored with an A as opposed to being bored with a D. A fiendish thought took hold of his mind. He immediately set his fingers to typing. If worst came to worst he could always blame the class for leaving him with idle hands. Besides, he needed to end this class quickly, his suit had just been returned to one of the base hangars after an inspection, and he wanted be back in the womb of his beloved Raider.

The Meyrin girl looked over at him suspiciously, not trusting his ardor to be dedicated to the lesson that the teacher was rambling on about. The girl was nice enough, as far as Crot was concerned, but nothing special. She had her hair in two pigtails of the same burgundy color that her sister, Lunamaria, had. Her youth had yet to be hammered upon by realities mace and she had a sort of innocent quality about her. It was one of those ephemeral things Oruga kept telling him about, certain qualities that "the mind could comprehend but not pin to words, only recognize the aura of it as it dripped in near tangible rivulets from the being that exuded it". It was the opinion of Crot that Oruga read to many of his crappy books. They were starting to affect his brain.

She had given him a fair tour of the area yesterday. Not that he had paid much attention to know but he could guess that it was a thorough circuit based off of how much she spoke and how sore his feet were by the time it was all over. Of course, since he hadn't learned anything it was moot. His Wonderswan was a far more enjoyable pasttime then listening to the girl.

He shrugged off her look and continued working on his little ploy. It was quite simple in theory. He was going to make the teacher's computer reroute the power from the fan to the other systems and make it over heat. The teacher would have to dismiss class early once her computer caught fire and Crot would get to see his Raider that much sooner.

It wasn't as easy as he thought it would be, after all he did have to change the computers programming but he had done harder things in his time. Hard things he regretted ever doing but still he had succeed at them. Finishing with a conceited flare he lay back and waited for his handiwork to unfold.

"What did you do?" a girl's voice whispered to him and Crot glanced at Meyrin. She was looking at him with a piercing gaze that seemed comical on her.

"What do you mean?" he replied with an innocent tone, barely succeeding in keeping the grin from his face and voice, he though he could already see the preliminary signs of overheating on the teachers computer. They were subtle so only those actively looking for them could see them.

"You typed something and I know you weren't typing notes. Also, you had a smug expression on your face and I don't trust it."

"Suspicious girl. Pay attention to your own problems or you'll fail!" That earned the young pilot two eyes filled with searing annoyance but he ignored it turning his attention back to watching the teacher's CPU overheat. For some odd reason it reminded him of his life in the EAF after he had been designated a "CPU". He shook of the memory.

A tendril of smoke began to come from the computer. It suddenly occurred to Crot that it would look somewhat suspect for him to being staring intently at the computer as it caught so he yawn again, much to everyone's chagrin, and lay back in his chair to wait for the pleasurable pandemonium to begin. He spent the idle time envisioning how it would unfold. Would the one of the students notice it, scream fire, and start a massive panic? Or would the teacher notice first and rush to fix as the class burst into chatter over what could be happening? Or maybe…

As it happened, it was one of the students that noticed first and he blurted out that there was smoke emanating from the computer. Crot was displeased when the teacher, a middle aged woman who Crot had thought would be more panicky then she turned out to be, was able to keep the class under control as she unplugged her computer and took a cursory look at it. She then stood up in front of the class, "It seems that my computer has broken down severely so I'd like you to do some extra reading in the textbook and run through practice lessons 5-7 in addition to your normal work." The class acknowledged her demand with a collective groan, except for Crot who wasn't bothered by it at all since he didn't plan to do the homework anyway.

Everyone filled out of the room, most doing it calmly but Crot dashed out, overjoyed to be seeing his Gundam again. Eventually though he slowed to walk but there was still has in his steps as he headed to the hangar. He wondered whether the mechanics here had screwed up his suit. The ones in the EAF were completely incompetent but the ones in ZAFT were Coordinators that meant they _should_ be more skilled then their Natural counterparts. Crot, however, didn't trust that to be so. He would probably be in his cockpit for the next few hours making all sorts of minor adjustments that the technicians, in their obsession with "standards" and "default settings", had changed.

Finding himself at the hangar, located in the bustling warehouse district of the base, he entered into the chill of the emptiness under birght sterile lights. There was no movement except for the dreamy stirrings of a lone mechanic asleep on his watch. He was probably only here because he had to be and there was no work to be done. The peace treaty had left him idle but his hours hadn't been adjusted to compensate for that and he still had a watch set around being ready at any time for enemy attack. Now it just gave him time to sleep.

The recirculated air brought a slight shuffling to his ear from the catwalk leading to the three Gundams which loomed over the hangar. Raider was on the far left with its dull gray armor just begging to have its phase-shift mode activated so it could radiate its black and red power. Its wings were folded behind its back and it stood rigid, at attention, waiting for the order to kill which, if the current world had its say, would never come. Pity. He almost cried every time he saw his beloved Raider sitting unused, its power wasted because people were afraid of some killing. Fighting was what Crot and his Raider existed for. It was like the peace treaty was denying him a right to exist and Crot, when he let himself drift to such thoughts for any length of time, felt threatened by it.

As he walked up to his suit, he continued to listen to the sound and fortunately it wasn't coming from his suit. He would never forgive anyone fiddling with his suit without his permission, with the minor exception of mechanics who he still despised. Stepping on the catwalk he saw Shani step out of his mobile suit and glance his way before returning to his suit. Shani could be creepy with his seeming ambivalence to your very existence. It made Crot want to hit the bastard. He'd like to see him stay apathetic then!

Crot noticed that Shani was, as always, listening to his music. Did that mean the bastard had heard him over his music… nah. He had just heard him over a gap in the song.

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Thankfully, it was only Crot. He was worried that maybe one of the mechanics was coming to continue doing some checks on his GATX-252, which is not what Shani needed right now. What he needed was to be left alone. Fortunately, Crot would just head to his own Gundam leaving Shani to his own devices. Shani could afford to have his secret revealed if it hadn't been already.

He slipped back into the cockpit, music ringing from his headset, a cool dark tune that painted a bleak horizon in his skull, and the polished steel of the cockpit shimmering with the flashing colors of his OS monitor. He had turned the monitor on so that when he was finished he could run a diagnostic and see what sort of changes those goddamn mechanics had done to his 252. Right now he had more important matter to distract him.

First, he went to one of the metallic arm rests, the one on the pilots left, and unscrew the latch with a screw driver he had found laying on the catwalk. After detaching the top plate he lifted it up and set it out of the way, revealing a mass of wires of various bright colors. He could tell from the lack of dust that someone had inspected it early and he was immediately set on edge. What if they had found it? Breathing in, he calmed himself, though he hardly looked ruffled to anyone who might have been watching him. He had skill with making hidden compartments in these suits and had years of experience smuggling things in his mobile armor back when he had been a regulation soldier in the EAF. Before he had taken a stupid risk with a large payload and gotten caught smuggling weapons to enemy combatants. He was sentenced to death for treason but he had avoided the needle by trading his body to Blue Cosmos.

His hand went into the mass of wires, down to a little hidden area, and to his relief closed around a small vial. Lifting it out of its hidden compartment he let a shadow of a smile cross his face as he gazed at the capsule that contain the drug known as Gamma Glipheptin. It was one of exactly 22 vials he had stolen over the course of his career with the EAF as a "Biological CPU". Having been a thief for most of his life it was difficult to resist picking the locks and one by one stealing the vials of Gamma Glipheptin from their case. He had done it with the most agonizing slowness so as not to arouse suspicion and when suspicion had been raised it was blamed on one of the doctors whose responsibility it was to safe guard the drug storage cabinet. They hadn't thought that one of the Extendeds would have a use for a drug he already took on a regular basis. He had been planning to make a break for it one day and use his storage of the drug to beat off the withdraw symptoms while he put as much distance as possible between himself and Azrael. He would probably have ditched his Gundam somewhere or maybe sell it to ZAFT through one of the dealers he had known.

He returned the vial to its hiding place and proceeded to check the others. They were all still in their various hiding places. A prideful smirk captured his mouth as he praised himself for retaining his abilities after all the years in Rodnia without the opportunity to practice more then hiding an extra ration or two in the air duct to his cell.

Dropping down into his pilot seat he brought down the main screen and proceeded to run some checks on the Forbidden's systems. He would admit that OS's weren't his specialty but he was still well trained enough to provide the proper modifications to suit his fighting style. Something mechanics didn't understand, they were to focus on maximizing the theoretical output without concern to pilot's preference. Crot was the biggest bitch about that. In fact, he could hear the Raider Pilot complain about idiotic modification even over his music and at a fair distance from the anal-compulsive's cockpit. But then, Crot was quite skilled with operating systems, more so than Shani, though he hated to admit inferiority to that loud mouth in any skill no matter what. Shani could say he edged out Oruga who normally just accepted the default settings with only a slight change in them. But then Oruga was good with the default settings and didn't _need _to change them. Speaking of which he thought he heard Oruga walking up the catwalk now as the song on his headset switched over.

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Oruga looked over at the two younger Extendeds as he passed their suits towards his Calamity. It had been his responsibility, back in the EAF, to make sure the other two were ready for combat at all times and were not compromising the mission. Not that he had particularly cared but he had still decided to keep up the small habit of checking them every time he saw them, which was the limit that his leadership responsibilities had been taken. Crot was, as usual, hard at worker readjusting the parameters of his suit, the kid always needed twenty minutes to change everything to fit his exacting needs. Once, after repeatedly telling a certain mechanic in the EAF not to change any of his custom settings, he attacked after the mechanic had returned them to the default, breaking two of the mans ribs and both his arms. Of course, that was while under the effects of the Gamma Glipheptin but it was still completely unnecessary as far as Oruga was concerned. He had always felt that the default factors were just fine and needed only minor adjustment unlike Crot's complete reprogramming of the OS every time he got in.

Shani was sitting in his cockpit performing his own modifications and while he also normally changed the settings on his suit he was always to cold to raise a fuss about it. One of the few times when Shani's apathy to the world around him wasn't a complete annoyance. The green-haired pilots violent eye looked up at Oruga as he passed but that was the only sign that Shani had even noticed him.

Oruga came, at last, to his own Gundam which stood with a rigid stance, looking down arrogantly at the empty hangar in front of it like a god upon the realm of mortals. Its twin shoulder mounted cannons gleamed menacingly, along with the vicious main bazooka which hung idle in the leviathan's right hand. He wished vainly that he had an enemy to kill. Someone, anyone would be better then letting his suit sit idle and wasted.

Stepping into the cockpit the suit groaned slightly in the bindings that were holding it erect. "I know, I want to kill something to but there is no room in this world for you and me right now." Laying back in his seat he brought up the OS menu and began to look at the settings the mechanics had given him and for the most part they were just fine but he did have to do a little modification to right hand. They had made the suit compensate for the bazooka which would make it feel to him like both arms had the same weight, which made it easier to use. However, he preferred to keep the weight uncompensated for because it allowed him to move faster and use the weight of the arm as a pivoting point. Afterwards, he made a couple other minor modifications to the power distribution but that was all. He turned the monitor off and sat in his cockpit and read for a while. It was infinitely more comfortable in here as opposed to anywhere else. Currently, he was reading _Catcher In the Rye_ and had been making decent progress through it over the past couple days since he didn't have much else to do and school rarely challenged him enough to make him bother.

He spent an hour reading in his cockpit. It seemed that both Shani and Crot had a similar notion to spend their freetime in their Gundams as he never heard either leave their mobile suits. However, he began to feel the on coming hunger and stood up to go to the cafeteria. Walking past his squadmates suits he again looked in on them. Shani was listening to music and had completely zoned out. Not even his eye acknowledged Oruga this time, so drawn in was Shani to the world inside his mind. Crot was playing his video game lying on the cockpit in an awkward sideways fashion, which if he slept like that would leave him with a backache in the morning. His head was resting on one of the arm rests and his back was arched across that seat with his feat resting against the wall of the cockpit.

Oruga descended from the catwalk and walked out of the empty hangar leaving the smell of oil for the exhaust scented air of the warehouse district that the hangar was located in. He head back towards the main academy building, which reared up from behind the park where the trees bowed toward it in the fake wind of the PLANT.

Pushing open the front entrance of the door with more force then was absolutely necessary and causing no small amount of attention to be drawn to him when the two door slammed against the clear glass panes to either side, he entered the building with a cocky strut. Which was when he saw the annoying punk he never wanted to see again and the punk saw him. The Shinn sneered visibly at Oruga and spat in his direction.

"Hey, bastard! You still sore over the fact we kicked your ass!" Oruga gloated, flashing a virulent smile.

Shinn stormed up to Oruga, the nerves on his forehead throbbing as he spat out his futile reprisal, "Shut it! You got lucky!"

This little worm thought that _he_ had gotten lucky? If any one was lucky it was the twirp because Oruga had enough mercy inside him not to finish kill him afterwards,"Ah, go back and cry to your mom!"

The Coordinator seemed far more offended by this insult then Oruga had thought he would be and with a scream punched Oruga across the jaw, pushing even the larger Oruga back two steps with his Coordinator's strength. Oruga saw red as rage began to feed into him and for a moment it was held off only by the thought that he might accidentally repeat what had happened back when he was an EAF regular. When he had completely lost it and stained his hands. But that small bit of resistance didn't last against the ire pulsing through him. Students had begun to gather around the two pilots and many were taking a vested interest in the fight while Shinn stood tall with an arrogant thinking that he had felled his foe, blissfully unaware that his foe was merely standing on the cusp of attacking, a shadow of hesitation the only thing keeping him from attacking. And that shadow vanished.

Oruga brought a huge punch around and knocked Shinn in the stomach lifting him of the ground with the force to land on his backside a step behind. Oruga gripped the left side of his face in his hand, he could feel the swollen adrenal gland pumping and it was causing waves of pain to rush through him and his vision to haze, along with his reactions to slow. Normally, these effects were offset by the Gamma Glipheptin but he didn't have any. He would have to deal with the side effects of the surgeries himself. He did get the advantage though.

Calculations flooded his head. His minded was bombarded with pontential scenarios and the relative likely hood of their occurances. –sic- another person becomes involved and attacks from behind. Chance: 3 because Shinn doesn't seem like the type to make friends and Lunamaria, Rei, and Meyrin are not present. Reaction: avoid attacker and find better ground for engagement. Success Rate: 90 -sic- Shinn gets up and attacks from front with jump kick. Chance 8 because he has not shown any propensity for leg attacks. Reaction: catch foot and throw him Success Rate: 79 -sic- Shin gets up and… Again and again the numbers and images flooded his mind and disturbed his mind from focusing on Shinn, who was now getting himself off the floor. His mind noted this and factored that into determining the next likely course of action. This was the reason they called him a "Biological CPU"

All these numbers and he could barely comprehend a bit of it. He missed the Glipheptin which allowed him to select the most aggressive option instantly and the one with the least chance of getting him killed. It turned him into a berserk maverick but it wasn't nearly as painful. Until the withdraw started of course.

Shinn rushed him throwing a wide right punch. Fortunately, he had started reacting to it before the punch was initiated when the likelihood of a right hook was more then 50. However, even with being able to predict it his conscious reactions weren't able to react to his knowledge and perform then necessary motions to catch Shinn's fist until he barely avoided taking another blow on the jaw. It was far closer then he liked. Immediately he launched a punch of his own hoping to take advantage of the opening but his opponent was able to stop his punch with his hand. For a moment the two of them stared each other down. Oruga's eyes the color of razor leaves, which hook small animals and tear them with their sharp spikes so the blood and flesh of the creature fertilizes the nitrogen pure soil, and Shinn's eyes the color of blood when it but thinly coats a sword or knife, before it has coagulated and taken on the darker tone of heart-blood.

Shinn attempted to knee Oruga in the stomach but again Oruga was able to predict Shinn's move and knocked the Coordinators knee aside causing him to loose balance for a moment. It was at this moment that Oruga fully submitted to the rage boil inside him and bodily lifted Shinn into the air, the boy now too stun to make a concentrated struggle, and hurled him across the room.

Oruga started breathing heavy. His hand hung limp at his side. Suddenly, they were grabbed and pinned behind his back. A larger person pushed him to the floor with their superior weight, though Oruga would have been able to fight them if his head wasn't hurting so much from his pulsing adrenal gland. "Alright break it up you to! Your going to Captain Talia for detention!"

Not resisting, Oruga let himself be taken away. He could hear the idiot yelling behind him, "Come back here you coward! I can still kick your ass!" But Shinn couldn't and not just because Oruga would beat him up again. He was also pinned by an officer and was wreathing in the man's iron grip.

Oruga sighed. At least it didn't turn out as bad as last time. But then, he had been far angrier then. Far more.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 finished. Also, to all those who submitted ideas for Crot's significant other, I have heard your pleas and will be taking them into consideration. Some I know right now won't work but I'll look at the others and see what I can do. And yay the plots moving finally.

The song is by Neutral Milk Hotel and is called _Two-Headed Boy_. It will be an important symbol for Shani's development. Just as _Catcher in the Rye_ mentioned in the last chapter is a symbol of Oruga's. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do about Crot's symbol… we'll see.

* * *

Oruga sighed as he pushes the mop along the cafeteria floor, continuing on his gradual progression towards having mopped one half of the cafeteria. The idiot Shinn was doing the other. He had been working for two hours thus far and he still had quite a ways to go before he could call it quits for the day. This was the fifth day of him being forced to this and by this time he was starting to develop a severe crick in his back from being stooped over for three hours or so each day. He arched his back to stretch the muscle as he groaned at the thought of how bad his back would be at the end of the month.

Moping the cafeteria floors was one of the punishments he had gotten for getting in a fight with Shinn. The two of them were to clean a half of the cafeteria for an entire month between when lunch ended and dinner began. The work was miserable and, of course, thankless but Oruga got to small pleasures out of the deal. One was that he always finished before Shinn did and the other was that Shinn seemed to hate it far more then he did. Seeing the bastard miserable made it almost worthwhile. The other punishment for Shinn was that he had gotten his weapon privileges revoked for two weeks, prohibiting from carrying his military issue pistol with him, in fact he had to turn it in to his commanding officer. Oruga, who had been on the cusp of receiving his pistol, was delayed in receiving it for two weeks, which pissed him off greatly.

While he was stretching, Oruga glanced over at the part of this entire process that had annoyed him the most. The officer in charge of overseeing the completion of their chore was Shani. He was currently sitting there listening to his music and seemed to be doing his usual tuning out of all earthly things but Oruga could tell when Shani was really zoning things out and he wasn't right now. His eye was a little too active, panning across the cafeteria occasionally. Shinn didn't know Shani well enough to be able to discern that and had tried to walk out when he thought Shani wasn't paying attention. That hadn't lasted long. He hadn't gone two strides when Shani asked where he was going in an omniscient tone, its intent not to question but to halt. While he had gotten a chuckle out of that, Shani was an annoyance more often then note. Especially since he had a small habit of checking how many bullets were in the magazine in his pistol. He had always the habit, as long as Oruga had known him, everytime they were practicing marksmanship back at Rodnia he would do that every so often and even after being without a gun for a long time –Azrael didn't trust the Extendeds with guns though Crot did carry with him a empty gun, never bothering to explain to Oruga why- Shani had retained the habit. It wasn't so much the habit itself that bothered Oruga it was the fact it flaunted the fact that Oruga hadn't received his gone yet. What made it worse was that Shani wasn't even doing it to annoy him, Shani wasn't the type to waste the effort bothering someone and was infuriating Oruga without even trying.

There were television sets attached to the ceiling of the cafeteria but Shani had them turned onto the news, with the subtitles on since he couldn't hear with his music blaring in his ear. News was so boring to watch and over the past five days Oruga had develop a hatred for it he never before possessed. The anchor's rambling words just gave an soundtrack of aggravation to something he already hated doing.

Currently, the newscaster, a man possessing a strong bearing and an eye catching head of well shaped red hair, was speaking of the current happenings regarding the peace treaty that had brought to an end the Bloody Valentine War. It was the most common subject for news programs to be on having been only two weeks since it had officially gone into effect and the world still holding its breath as it prayed beneath its covers that it would indeed hold. The specific news he was narrating was a talking point that he and other newscasters had already gone over several times, since they had to fill out 24 hours of news each day. It was the EAF and ZAFT asking too take a look at the different weapons labs and other research buildings directly connected to that force's ability to make war. It was then that a new piece of information was dropped into the report that made Oruga jerk his head toward the screen. "ZAFT has come up with photos that were taken over the course of the Bloody Valentine War from its spy satellites which show what it claims to be a military installation or laboratory of some kind which was not disclosed during the peace signs as both sides had agreed to do. It states that it will hold off allowing any EAF personal into its lab. This may cause concerns for the stability of the peace agreement that has so far managed to hold firm. The only knowledge that ZAFT currently is releasing to the press on the lab is its location in Rodnia. We now have in the studio Professor Charles Carter who will be giving us an insight into the possible mindset of the EAF. Professor Carter, what do you believe could be…"

The man had no idea what he was dealing with. He thought that it might result in a changing of conditions or some minor diplomatic maneuvering. What he thought was a minor sinkhole was really a pit waiting to ensnare the world in its grasp. The EAF would never let ZAFT see the Rodnia facility, it would rather there be another war then reveal the experiments that went on there. If the lab were exposed the EAF would loose all support from the people it governed and the already sporadic rebellions it had been wracked by for sometime would spread into a wildfire. Its very foundation would be put under threat and it would give the ZAFT forces a moral advantage that they could press until all possibility for the EAF's survival was eliminated.

The EAF would rather go too war against ZAFT again rather then take than let itself be torn apart from the inside.

He turned toward Shani who had stood up from his seat and was staring with equal intensity, his head phones resting, forgotten, on his shoulders. Getting closer to Shani so that he could speak with the silent Extended and not be over heard he noticed that his purple eye bore that same look that he, Crot, and Oruga got when they were focus, when all there thoughts were on predicting and killing their opponents. Shani was running through the possible ways this situation would pan out, all the different ways this crises could pan out and their corresponding likelihood's. And from the way his shouldered slumped the odds were not very good.

But then both of them caught each other's eyes and Oruga knew that they were both hoping for war, it was the only reason they had been altered to be who they had become. It was the only way they could validate their existence.

Oruga spoke, breaking the pregnant silence, "We cannot tell Crot about this. He won't be able to keep his mouth shut."

"That's given." Shani replied and then he seemed to sink back into himself. His eyes lost focus and Oruga walked off leave his sergeant to his thoughts. He was running over all the things that could go wrong as well.

* * *

Crot bite into a sandwich he was holding as he looked across the table from him at Shinn who as usual took the seat furthest from Oruga and which, usual, happened to be directly across from him. Crot wished that Shani would stop grabbing the center seat when they ate and that Lunamaria would stop immediately sitting across from him when he did so. It was beyond understanding why the girl even continued to bother, as Shani had not shown any major increase in conversational ability, though now Lunamaria had learned to form from Shani's replies a thread of responses that almost managed to come off as a human conversation. If Shani reciprocated the emotion that the girl obviously seemed to possess towards him, he gave no indication.

The problem with Lunamaria's talking with Shani was that it left Crot having to sit across from Shinn – and occasionally Meyrin would sit on Shinn's side of Lunamaria but with less consistency than Shinn. Just because Crot did not normally go out of his way to get into a fight with Shinn did not mean he bore the Coordinator any good feelings. Occasionally they would get into arguments on various subjects none of which were of any particular importance to either of them, fighting merely for the sake of argument. More then once one of the two would leave their lunch half eaten to avoid the other. Even in the calmer days there was an undercurrent of ill will in there interactions, as though both searched each other words for something to take offense at, like a miser searching through grass blades for a fallen coin of value only in that miser's eyes.

Currently, though, Crot's thoughts were not on the obnoxious pilot across the table from him but rather the two annoying pilots beside him.

Crot had been coming to the usual table- as Oruga would say in his haughty, tone, "Humans being creature's of habit are inclined to choose the same choice that with previous experience brought them good or which did them no harm"- to find Shani and Oruga conversing with great fervor on a subject. There voices were low, barely above a whisper, and the discussion reached him only as a series of impassioned hisses. As he drew closer Oruga cast him a glance and immediately the subject between the two was dropped as they turned to start eating their food as though they had just been talking of the weather. Well… as though they were normal people who had been talking about the weather, Oruga would never bother to talk about something trivial like that unless it was with a girl and Shani wouldn't talk about anything at all. When Crot asked what the two of them were talking about he received only a curt, "Nothing, idiot" from Oruga and a dismissive wave of a hand from Shani.

What could those two have been speaking of? Was it some sort of plan that they were hatching? Maybe, Oruga wanted to try and catch the attentions of Lunamaria and Shani wouldn't let him? That seemed like a possibility only he wasn't quite that certain of Shani's interest in Lunamaria, not too mention that he probably wouldn't care enough to get jealous and argue about it. So that left him back where he started with no idea what the two might have been discussing. It must have been something of incredible weight though to stir Shani from apathy, he had almost looked like a normal person arguing about something trivial. His eye had been staring straight into Oruga's, as apposed to normal where the eye seemed stare _through _people, not even registering the person.

Letting a vague sigh escape his lips, to fall on deaf ears as no one was paying attention to him, Crot slipped his Wonderswan game system out of his pocket and turned it on. There was no conversation that caught Crot's interest, Oruga almost amiably arguing with Rei over the proper interpretation of some stupid book they had read in English, which Oruga considered himself the foremost expert on. Thus, it was that Crot found himself playing his game in silence. It was also while doing this that he found out that his batteries were dead when the screen, once bright with flashing colors as he guided some lonely ship across a sea of stars beset by the requisite monsters and aliens that always tried to the impede the path of travels, fade into the screen's base dismal color that was the some of all colors mixed in a chaotic swirl where all good attributes of each individual hue were completely canceled out in the empty dreck.

It seemed the world hated Crot. Hated him with a burning passion the likes of which no one could comprehend.

With apprehension weighing heavily upon his shoulders, Crot looked across the table at the black haired man sitting across from him. Crot was bored. It was amazing what thoughts would enter the human mind when faced with the impending force of boredom. "Hey, idiot, why weren't you sent to the battle front with some of the other recruits for the battle of Jakin Yue?" The human spirit scuttle like some of sad insect toward would ever bit of jetsam would grant it respite against the deep, drowning waters of tedium. The fear the bug felt toward the ensnaring bosom of water was probably far greater then the pain of the water itself, it was an action with little logical, more tied to instinct and emotion.

Shinn lifted his head up looking at Crot skeptically. Crot knew the boy was confused by the almost… friendly tone? No that would be too strong a word… he was confused by the way that the tone seem almost free of hidden sneers and derogatory turns of phrase. Sure, he had been called an idiot but that was more as a way to keep from being nice then having any actual malice attached to it and the his question was far too conversational to be based out of spite. Still, Shinn seemed cautious, as if not sure whether this new side of connection was a façade covering greater cruelty which he was about to step into if he answered. Crot could read the questions painted on the Coordinators feature with the ridges of furrowed brows and the scorching gaze of probing eyes.

However, Shinn's stare could find now hidden evil in Crot's so careful, ever carefully, he answered the question, his words at first slow and hesitant but gradually falling into a normal talking speed, like young bird emerging for the first time from his mother's nest, as he gradually became used to the concept of speaking with out to Crot without the underpinnings of malice. "because (pause) I was (pause) too young at the time (pause). I only recently turned sixteen (pause) and that was the cut off date for the enterance into actual army, (pause on last time before his face and form seemed to ease and he spoke in his normal tone, which still that vague hint of sadness turned angst turned rage but Crot could tell that it was not borne toward him) as opposed to the academy which allows all those of high school age into it. Shouldn't it be obvious, fool?"

Crot smirked slightly, "Well, forgive me if I didn't know that PLANT was such a pansy nation about letting people into the army. I engaged in my first battle at the age of 12."

"Did you? Can't imagine how someone completely lacking in skills as you could have survived even a moment, and that's not counting that you were only 12, this taking your current skill." Shinn flashed Crot a false sneered but it did not reach his eyes with their bleeding depths.

This friendly, competitive banter continued from sometime, long after Oruga and Rei walked off continuing there argument about the proper use of some esoteric poetic device, long after Shani had slipped away from Lunamaria and stalked off to be alone in some dark corner of the academy, to lay dormant behind his eyes as music buried him beneath six feet of apathy, long after Lunamaria, sighing sadly at Shani's departure, slipped of to go to her next class where she would doodle distractedly as her mind wander wherever will, spend its ephemeral time floating gently on the subjects that girls of her age are wont to dwell on, long after the cafeteria and long after the bell had sounded for their next class to begin Shinn and Crot would be sitting there trading scathing remarks and arrogant comments like two old drinking buddies who are left alone after all the other bar's patrons had long ago left to rest. At the end both would leave thinking that they had done the greatest damage to the others pride and would already be preparing further friendly insults to gore their foe upon.

* * *

Lunamaria exhaled a frustrated sigh. She believed she deserved the small solace that sighing at her difficulties would bring, for she had many things to frustrate and drive her to it. Shani, the silent young man she had taken in as her personal responsibility, making it her mission to make sure that, since he showed no ability towards it himself, he made some friends beyond just those he had arrived with, still remained as silent and incoercible as he always did. It was aggravating, though she never let it show, to reach out to him time and again only to have her attempts at conversation easily parried to the side or spat back in her face. He appeared to have no desire to have human contact and she had noticed that he never even spoke amiably with even the people had arrived with which she had always thought were his friends. Deep in her mind, the places where she let no one else, she knew her patience was running thin with him. She bore him a small amount of friendly affection mixed with the responsibility that seniority (at least in terms of being a member of the ZAFT academy) brought and even a small amount of curiosity as to how Naturals were different from Coordinators, but in returned he cast he glares just as icy as he would give to virtually anyone else. Hating him seemed like the most logical thing to do but she just could not bring herself to do that, she did not like to think herself hateful and would give him every benefit that doubt could bring.

It wasn't like his two "friends" had the same problems, they seemed rather normal though they had a battered aspect to them, which there aggressiveness seemed to be forged around, and now that she thought about it Shani's silence seemed to be too. But they were just three normal boys, sure they had been soldiers, but that didn't provide an explanation into Shani's withdrawal. Maybe he was just one of those weak souls that could not accept anyone but himself that he was so selfish that he didn't need anyone else to create his world and rather then drifting out to see people who could only be less then himself he drew inward. Lunamaria chastised herself silently for thinking such dark thoughts as she quietly looked up toward Shani sitting a few seats to her right as the dull sound of lecturing baptized the room with heavy-eyed words. Shani seemed immune to stultifying effects of the teacher's words and looked at her with the same look in his violet eye, that eye which blended blood and ocean water in a single brilliant hue, as was always there. He would be one of the few people who remembered what the teacher had said that day and would pass the exam with ease. Considering is eye's affinity for looking lazy and half-interested even when events were transpiring which required his immediate attention it was a wondered that when the teacher had started lecturing that first day with his sense-dulling tone that his eye hadn't imploded from the lack of feeling and closed for sleep to over take it.

Suddenly, his purple marble, that searing eye, slid over toward her, as if feeling her lazy gaze on his skin. She started at him having sensed her and she forced down the blush that was being forced out of her by his stony scrutiny. For who could not feel that they had trespassed like some curious child, when they are being watched as though they were nothing but?

The bell ending class for the day rang and she let out a sigh of relief as she was saved. Shani exited with the lethargic sloth he was used to and she, fearing that what he may say to her about her having been caught staring at him, even it was more of a stare of wonderment as one stares at a forgotten artifact which one can not construe the purpose of. No matter what Shani might think, she feared what he might say. But she feared one thing more. That he would say nothing.

* * *

"What do you think we should do about it? This is a clear breach of the treaty and calls for action but we don't know any specifics about it, we could be sucked into something that we can't escape." Said a brown haired man of middle age, who was gently scratching a patch of dead skin on the back of his hand without noticing it. He had many such habits which were both grating and unnecessary, the product of a socially cloistered life style and not having been properly disciplined as a youth to avoid such actions which might distract the listener. He had a good head on his shoulders and a flexible view of ethics which made him great as one of the chairman of the Subcommittee of Diplomatic Relations.

They were sitting in a grand circular hall with a ceiling that ascended dark, and endless above them. Above the round conference table that they were sitting were bright halogen lights that illuminated them but which cast strange bestial shadows dancing across their faces. The lights seemed to do very little to illuminate the room itself which was wreathed in shade and empty corners where not even a wall or floor seemed to day, just a hole in space. What little parts that the light got to, highlighting them dimmed and blue against the darkness seemed to be shards of some intransient sadness that none could comprehend.

"I'm aware of that potential but at the same time it has to much potential for us not to exploit it. The EAF is protecting something out there and we have to find out what it is, to pass this up may sacrifice too much future bargaining superiority. Besides, if we strike now while they are in a moral weak position, if we turn our phrases properly and slice low, we may be able to undermine their already sketchy public support. The EAF has had rebellions for some time, some of which we have inherited in our conquest, so if we keep striking at their authority we should be able to topple the EAF into a thousand minor nation-states. If that happens we will be able to guide them like so many sheep." Her response had been cutting as hers usually were. She wasn't one of the most respected members of the PLANT council for nothing. She doubted any of these people could tell the scope of what they were dealing with, they were like so many cockroaches, used to dealing with there small little holes and covens that they lost the ability to comprehend the greater picture when it was staring them straight in the face.

"What about those recent defectors? I don't know how many of you bothered to take a look at the data on them or more importantly the lack there of" with a few clicks and a bit of typing the speaker, a man of a smooth pale face from which two yellow eyes of vicious, serpentine intelligence blazed, the face beautifully framed by long black hair, had run a search on the name of one of the deserters. Shani Andras. "Look we see no personal data even in the public records of the EAF. Also, I did research on the individual names themselves, Shani is a celestial being from Hindu Astrology and Andras is a Hebrew Demon. This is not the kind of name that people are normally given. I believe that it may be a proxy name.

"Also, if you take a look at the suits they were found in they are highly advanced, the GAT-X131 Calamity is based on but exceeds the specs that we got from the GAT-X103 Buster, which we stole from Orb while they were preparing to send it to the EAF. It seems to me that the Calamity was probably made using the Buster's specs and therefore is a highly capable mobile suit, one not to be given to just any run of the mill pilot.

"If we also take into account that there is no data on its pilot Oruga Sabnak, his last name also that of a demon though he uses a vernacular spelling of it, the footage we have of the Calamity fighting against are forces – footage showing the pilots ability, the ability of a _Natural_ mind you, to not only keep up but _obliterate_ our soldiers- and the fact that of all the known bases of the EAF, which are every base except the one at Rodnia, we have seen nothing capable of producing a pilot, let alone three pilots, of such amazing skills, it seems to me…" here he paused, letting his yellow eyes catch each other member of the council in slow succession, as the words seemed to only grow louder and more powerful as they faded from hearing, "…that those three soldiers came from Rodnia or are related to it in someway. I can't tell if Rodnia is some sort of advanced training ground or something more sinister but I believe those traitors are tied to it. This makes them dangerous but it also makes them useful. We must address this at once. I think it would be in our best interest to speak to them on these matters at once."

There was silence for a moment before each of the members of the council began to nod their individual accent to the proposition. The woman looked at the speaker, he was new and already he had started making a reputation for himself. Could find no fault in the man's logic and he had taken every possible into account it seems but something had her on edge. She could exactly say what it is but if she had to she'd chalk it to the much famed "woman's intuition" but she was politician, she didn't believe such silly things like intuition and trust. All the same there was a feeling of being in a dark cave with just a match, she could make out only a few scant lines of the walls and that only made her realize more that she had no real idea where the walls were nor any idea about stones in her path. It was the feeling of seeing a wave of an ocean and realizing how little of the ocean you actually see.

She pushed the feeling, now was the time for childish thoughts, now was the time for decisive action, for initiative. "Hmmm…" She muttered aloud, buying time for her to order her thoughts, "That deserves at least some further looking into. I suggest we interview the one we had promoted to sergeant, raises the least fuss. Even if he wasn't directly involved he may know something on the matter."

One of the other suits, a moderately chubby man whose stiff collar at times seemed to strangle his flabby neck. "But we can not be sure of the boys' loyalty! They have already shown a willingness to defect, how can we be sure that they will not do so again? If we accidentally let one of those boys know too much it could come back to cause us severe problems."

"There is little damage the boy could actually do. The world already knows we want information on Rodnia so it will be difficult for the EAF to use the knowledge that we asked a few questions to their former soldiers as any sort of propaganda. As for possibility of the boys' rediffection, we have already separated them from other units to avoid them from being a risk to our other units. If they were to betray us there is little damage that three suit – even suits of the capabilities specified could do to our forces. Furthermore, I don't know if you are aware of this but one of the three boys, Oruga I believe, got into one of our top students, Shinn, and both are under severe disciplinary probations which include the loss of weapon privileges. If these boys were active spies or actively contemplating its dubious they would go around instigating, as many of the witnesses described it, fights. They would want to be model members of the academy which by all indictations they are not. I'm having to read reports from different levels complaining about the sergeant's apathy and contempt towards all aspects of military light. I have to approve allowing one of the boys to even continue taking class because he is so disruptive that they want him removed from the school. If it weren't for the symbolic importance as showing our willingness to build relations with naturals one wouldn't be allowed into a school room another would be kicked out of the academy for starting a fight in his first week and the other would be being disciplined so hard his muscles would burn for months. Do you really think that they are spies if they act like this?" She said her tone growing more angry as she remembered all the paper work the three boys had caused her over the past few weeks. It had been a great aggravation and she couldn't hold back the waves of sheer against that coursed in her veins.

The chubby man spoke up again, his voice laced with annoyance which he couldn't completely hide to her trained ear, "The issue isn't necessarily whether or not they are conscious spies but whether they have any loyalty. I have read the reports from the teachers and peers as well and these boy's don't sound like the type to risk there lives for something, one is to logical and apathetic, another is arrogant and doesn't care about anything but himself, and the other doesn't take anything seriously. These are the types that surrender early and willingly defect if things are not going there way, as has been shown by their actions. While it is important to keep them for their symbolic value, we can't be putting to much faith in their loyalty. Hell, we shouldn't even let them near the front lines. They will only betray us. Therefore, any information that they can glean from us interviewing them could be used against us."

"That won't happen"

A voice broken the argument and all eyes turned to the young looking man with golden eyes and black hair. He had his fingers knitted together in front of his nose and used his two thumbs to cradle his chin as he leaned forward on the circular table the meeting was taking place on, his eyes glazed over with thought and behind them one could see him doing something more akin to math than to understand people in his head. "I remember when Chairman Joule interviewed the three pilots. I remember their responses. I remember the cautious looks in there eyes, they were not afraid, but there was something careful about them, especially in now-Sergeant Andras. I remember how he asked us not to release any of their information. I think that this may mean something. They are worried about what the EAF may do to them if they found out of there continued survival, as though the EAF would kill them without a second thought. I think these three are more refugees then defectors, escape something painful rather then going to wherever they have an advantage."

There was a momentary silence before the other man sighed, "Alright, I concede your point. You and Chairman Joule will conduct the interview- the sergeant would probably prefer to see a face he has already seen and I trust you to wring the information out that we need." The use of the word trust brought a somber cold attitude into everyone's heart, trust wasn't something given lightly and the fact that the chubby man had given his trust so willingly to the person who had argued against him meant something of great significance. " However, do not let that boy onto anything, he's a dangerous one to interview based of his test which gave his tactical ability among the highest we have ever had. We should be interviewing the distruptive student but that would raise suspicion. So be careful, if he pierces are intent, or worse suspects the worst, as wisdom would demand he do when dealing with those with power like us, he may fear for his life. We can't guarantee his actions if he believes that."

She and the serpentine chairman both bowed there head slightly in acknowledgement of his words.

As the other members of the committee filed out of the room, Joule pressed a button on the desk which connected her to a secretary, "Send for Shani Andras".

She looked seeing the other Chairman still in a profoundly thoughtful pose, seeming to reach out from his skull to snatch at the vague floated wisps of truth. She still couldn't say she had completely gotten rid of that feeling of apprehension but still she spoke, " Are you ready for this Dullindal? Or should I postpone it?"

He looked up, his eyes suddenly coming into focus, "Hmmm? Oh no, I'm ready."

* * *

Stepping out of the classroom with chill apathy, Shani began to make his way back towards his room. He had seen Lunamaria slip quickly out of the room and it had raised a blurred curiosity in him, since she normally made a point of always talking to him. It wasn't that he particularly cared it was just that he had gotten used to it and now it was different so he noticed the change. "People notice changes in their conditions as monkey's notice changes in their cages it but human nature to react to something unusual with trepidation", Oruga had said that once while he had been reading. But Oruga always concerned himself with illogical things like human emotions. Shani didn't see the point.

Still, Lunamaria was quite possibly the most tolerable of the people whose acquaintances he had been forced to make. Oruga and Crot weren't too bad when they were reading or playing video games respectively. The rest of the time though, Oruga would either wax arrogant or poetic, and Crot would rant about whatever was pissing him off at the time, believe for some misguided reason that Shani cared about what happened in his life. The Shinn boy was pure annoyance. He was cocky, always angry, and would start shouting and crying whenever he saw any of the Extended. His rage was like a florescent light attached to a generator, loud and bright but lacking heat. Rei wasn't too bad since he spoke only rarely, but his demeanor was distracting as he always seemed to be speaking down to people. Meyrin… well he had really been bothered by Meyrin at all which made her better then most.

Lunamaria, he didn't mind too much. It would always be his preference to be alone but she normally made the times he had to speak much less painful. She would follow him around like some sort of dog and, though this annoyed him from time to time, it was normally ignorable. Occasionally, she would ask him questions which he would brush off but she was unobtrusive about it so he normally humored her with a grunt in response. No more.

Today though was different, she left with a darting speed of a frightened deer and he vaguely recalled the incident during class when he had caught her staring curiously at him. Sometimes, he would catch her glancing at him, an action which he still didn't understand, but he never thought much of it and didn't look back. But this time she had looked deep in thought so he had stared back. He couldn't give a precise reason as to why but he supposed that because he had been so unabashedly looking at him he should look back, not to mention that she might tell him why she was gawking so strangely. Honestly, he didn't care about what she thought, but he was having a random fit with curiosity and the wonder was digging into his brain like a barbed arrow. The result was that she blushed and got nervous. Shani didn't know how to judge that response, it was confusing.

Sighing slightly and putting pointless thoughts out of mind, he pushed open the door to his dorm room, an accomadation bearing all the marks that would distinguish it as being just like a thousand others. He set his books down on a small table with series of heavy thumps as each book crashed against the wooden surface. He stepped into the bathroom, needing a shower badly because he hadn't had time for one for the past few days, with watching Oruga and Shinn clean floors and doing piles of homework and paperwork that came with the territory of sergeant. He despised watching Shinn and Oruga sweep those floors because there was nothing for him to do and he almost wanted, at times, to grab a mop himself so that it would go faster.

The bathroom was grey with a blindingly white ceramic sink above which loomed menacingly mirror enclosed in a frame as jarringly, as puritanically, white as the sink. These two pieces of furniture seemed to stand unreal against the existent, drab grays and muted blues of the bathroom, and though the other parts of the bathroom would get sullied by the nature of Shani only marginal cleanliness and the dirt that would accumulate in all military room, the sink and mirror would not. It was as if the dirt slid of these two nothing affecting them save what was put into their making. The ceramic of the sink looked thin a flimsy, like it was a breath's-width layer of substance over a hollow how but not two days ago it had proven itself to be sturdier than expected. That day had been one filled with stress, his class that day had been fruitless, the teacher empty, imperceptive words had failed to say anything about the subject on which he was supposed enlightening the students, a certain series of tariffs that were placed in PLANT in reaction to the squabbling complaints of vested business interests who wish a protective barrier for their products. Thus, it was already obvious he would need to spend time reading but he to watch Oruga and Shinn do their god awful mopping. Furthermore, he had three reports which had been due for several days which he needed to finish – since he hadn't felt any desire to do them before). By the time he had gotten home his rage had built to a point to which it rarely got, though he hid this behind a veil of hair and facial features carefully positioned to convey apathy. Finally, he snapped and in a act of rage and frustration released his ire in a single blow on the counter top. The blow did not affect the ceramic in the least, not a single crack marred its fiery white surface. He had taken steroids while he had been part of Blue Cosmos' Extended –having been conscripted in early adolescence when his muscles would receive the most benefit from use of long term enhancement- and by now, though he did not have the large muscles of a man dedicated to muscles that made the most visual impact, he was stronger than even the majority of Coordinators. His fist could have damaged most any surface but this ceramic form seemed immutable.

Turning on the water, he began to take of his clothes, one ZAFT over coat, one t-shirt underneath, and a pair of pants with cuts across the legs, along with shoes and socks. The only thing left on him was his dog tags from the EAF. One had written on it "Andras, S. F. (his name Shani Flauros Andras) 666-13-2015 (his social security number which no longer existed in any computers anywhere) 123rd Airborne Unit, O, Not Given". One the other was written a brief. "BPU Unit 0000-0000-0231". He removed both and set them on the counter of the sink.

He washed coarsely, doing no more then the absolutely necessary functions of cleaning before stepping out to dry. Putting on his cloths he looked in the mirror at himself, and he noticed, after tugging his shirt on over his thin, muscled chest that the bang which normally covered his left eye was slightly askew and he could see the left eye. An ill feeling flooded him, filled him with an angst which claw scathingly at the innards of his skull. He stared into his eye, moving with his hand the hair so that he could get a better view of it. It looked back at him, with a superficial love and happiness which hid underneath it the chill of apathy. Veins began to bulge from under his skin as his muscles compressed in barely contain rage. Focus on the world around him began to ebb and the edges of each object began to erode. Realizing his own excitement, he knew that his adrenal gland had been aroused and was flooding his system with its chemicals. His mind began to try to calculate and predict but the eye left nothing to predict, it just stared back at him mockingly as the cogs in his mind spun with complete futility. A severe headache began to spread outward from the core of his brain as his subconscious frustration built finding no answers. His hand clasped his head in his hand and looked down, leaning both elbows on the white sink to support him as broke his gaze with the eye and stared down into the drain. An endless hole into which, at that time, he wished to sink so that he would never have to see that eye again, where all things were blackness and he could be free of it, of the guilt.

As his rage built he slipped his head phones into his ears in a vain attempt to calm down. Suddenly, his favorite dirge began to play, the singer killing himself on his words,

_Two-Headed Boy  
Put on Sunday shoes  
And dance 'round the room  
To accordion keys  
With the needle that sings in your heart  
Catching signals that sound in the dark  
Catching signals that sound in the dark _

His fury broke suddenly, when a knock came on the door, soft and shy. There was a slight nervous impatience to it that, if he had the empathy to catch it, would have told him that he had missed the person's first knock, drowned it out with the screaming of his mind and that off the musician as well. Gently running his hand over his hair to make certain that the bang completely covered his left eye and fixing the cracks that had formed in his shell of apathy, he stood up with lazily slumped shoulders, ambling himself to the door to his room. Certain that his out burst had been completely erased, like paint applied with fervent haste to wood but with later thought was ill placed, he opened the door, not feeling any surprise at the girl he saw before him.

Lunamaria bore an air of authority, conveyed in her rigid posture and her attempts to eliminate any sense of familiarity that she might harbor in her eyes. She was probably here on business Shani supposed. However, when she saw him a lot of that control seemed to dissipate and a vague apprehension crept into her features. She spoke up with a voice filled with cracks and breaks, "um…Shani… Your presence is requested at conference room in the Admin building".

"Hn…" Shani grunted in affirmation before stepping out and beginning to walk away. He looked over his shoulder a moment and his gaze pop some small bubble that had formed around her mind and she caught up to him in order to show him the way to the conference room of which she spoke.

They stepped out of the dormitory building into the flush of a perpetual synthetic spring where no sooner had the blossoms faded from one plant then they appeared in another. The slight wind, warm and full of energy, which blew against blue skies with synthetic clouds dancing over head, attempted vainly to pull Shani's hair from his eye and expose the sin it represented but was foiled since his hair had grown so used to its placement it detested being shifted from it. Green leaves whispered in their branches the entire picture captured the essence of idyllic spring save for one thing. It was all phony. Shani, being from earth and used to the changing seasons, knew that plants should not be so green at this time of year and it made him distrustful of all PLANT. Everything it seemed wanted to make things seem different then what they were, they hid the fact that trees had to be dug up and moved every year to a room of controlled darkness and light, unable to sustain the constant growth for so long a time

"I'm sorry about earlier." She said after a moment. " I didn't mean to leave you after class today."

"…oh… its not important" Shani said simply.

"…heheh…yeah…" Her words seemed more to comfort herself then an actual response to something he said. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. He hadn't intended it to be an insult, if he had it would have been far harsher. Oh well, it he didn't particularly care either way.

She walked him the rest of the way and when she left him at the conference room it was with a friendly wave. He only looked back and she smiled sweetly in return. He wondered why vaguely. Never once did he notice that the skeleton of a smirk had been on his face.


	5. Chapter 5

First of all, I'm sorry about how short this chapter is and how its only about Shani's conversation with Jule and Gilbert. You'll have to forgive me but school started and I have 5 AP classes (two of which are self-study) not to mention Spanish Physics AND Japanese. And lest I forget I'm also doing college app work so… I've been a wee bit busy. You'll have to forgive me if I take a while to get the next chapter up but hopefully I'll be able to get all the characters in the next one.

* * *

"Take a seat" the platinum haired woman said with a polite tone. There was only one seat to choose from, directly facing her and the black haired man, so he took it sitting down with caution and distrust. Shani didn't place much faith in them, this was to abrupt, and being on the heels of the news broadcast on Rodnia Laboratory only further laced him with apprehension. He was naturally distrustful and scornful towards authority, either resulting from or causing his life of smuggling and thievery, which he couldn't tell. Pleasant meetings with those of authority were not a mark of Shani's life up to this point and he doubted that this inquisition would change anything. Even in the woman's tone he could tell that this wasn't going to be some lackadaisical check up on how his unit was doing or something trivial like that. No, there was too much hidden in her voice to let this be just a normal little conference, the vague sentiments of time-tested distrust, need-driving curiosity, and a deep well of caution, the kind of caution more comely linked with a man who defuses bombs. Her eyes were like scalpels carefully cutting away at his flesh like some pithed dog, pulling back the layers of carefully attached skin to see how the organs beat within. Her eyes were a vicious malignant purple like his own eye. The other person at the table looked through him with weighing eyes, burnish-god and serpentine just like-like- he pushed down the thought, he needed his focus in the present.

The room they had chosen to interview him in was forebodingly dark and it grated against Shani. He saw so very little and his ignorance of each dark recess caused his hackles to rise as though hidden foes lay crouched in two inch shadows and deep shallow pockets of shade. Panging acutely in his head was the knowledge that he was out of his element, far from the field of battle, bullets, blood, and blaring brains, hear he was in the silent world of severed sentences and creeping tongues. It set him on edge. The wretchedness of his situation was only compounded by the knowledge that they weren't bothered and that they knew, the knew for a fact, that he was out of his specialty, they knew even though he hid it under a watery veil of apathy which flowed oceanic across his face seeming to have been there since the beginning of time.

Shani stood silent in front of them, not wanting to stretch himself out just yet, if he was going to go out on a limb in this he would have to wait for when the time was right. Suddenly, in Shani's eye a chessboard appeared on the dead steel table between them. He was black, dark light drinking monoliths standing chill in their rows, and they were white, dynamic paragon's stretching out their tendrils towards him carefully and with deliberate intelligence. They had already made the first move, said the first words, it was quick rush with a pawn in front of the left rook. Were they hoping to sacrifice the pawn in a gambit to give the rook better movement to move, he had to be careful. He impelled his right knight into motion, keeping him along the board edge and hoping to later gnaw at their flanks, "You wanted to see me?"

"Why yes, we did. But first, how have things been for your unit are you and you friends amalgamating well with the new surroundings and the students here at the academy?" The pawn in front of the rook on other side of the board moved forward, mirroring its brother. They might be trying to get both rooks out early and pincer his main group of pieces but it could be a feint. For now at least the rooks were limited and couldn't be brought to bear without him knowing ahead of time.

"Sufficiently", his pawn in front of the queen glided forward freeing up his bishop a little and preventing the rook on the right from going anywhere. His eyes glazed the ephemeral board over searching for the set up… it would be there. They had a ploy going, their eyes, their tongues, betrayed it.

"I see. How does it compare with your experience in the EAF?" said the white-haired woman and as her words left her lips Shani could see the left most knight moved from behind its shield of pawns. That sentence had the curtains of a trap in its presentation. They wanted to know about his time in the EAF, and they were going to first find out by comparing it to his current situation. That and they could use this as a bridge into further conversation on the EAF and they would be waiting for any mention of Rodnia Laboratory, which was their ultimate goal. This entire interview was just a set up to find out information about Rodnia. Not that it surprised him.

"Fine…" He said being ambiguous as possible. His queen moved up directly behind the pawn covering both rooks completely and giving him a dangerous, if exposed center. He would have to be careful that his queen didn't come under direct attack. He just couldn't think of the words at the moment that would bring the pawns into a body shield around her.

"Any specific problems with your situation so far or any places of particular improvement?" She said and the pawn in front of the white queen moved forward one space so that the bishop adjacent to her had an open view down the line. She was still fishing but he wasn't completely certain that that was all she was plotting, he felt there was a trap coming and that he was bumbling his way into it.

"No," he said cool and was pleased to watch his pawn move up beside the queen protecting her flank while not curtailing to attack the important parts of the board. Still he could shake the feeling that he was being played off. That he wasn't actually getting anywhere with anything. The too-small light that skittishly illuminate the roomed swayed nervously in a synthetic breeze caused by the air-conditioning turning on even though it wasn't at all warm. The dulled glisten from the cadaver steel table was flashing, with stabbing thrusts, into his eye, blinding him every few moments, disrupting the chittering thoughts that snickered like crickets around his brain.

"I see, " she said but did not pause even an instant as she moved deftly forward with her inquiries, "Where were you stationed during your time in the EAF." Suddenly the chessboard vanished, but he could still feel its presence. A stark realization that perhaps there were more subtle traps afoot in her words. He began to try to forge an answer but he knew he would be acting on a hunch more that an rational decision.

"At first I was stationed at an EAF Mobile Armor base in Eastern Europe before the war started and was dealing with some rebellions in the Latvia region and at one point I was part of a convoy moving supplies to Czechoslovakia. After the war started I was moved around for a while but was eventually found a permanent station on the Dominion." He carefully edited out his long stay in Rodnia, he was worried that she wouldn't buy it. However, she settled into a brief period and didn't seem to latch on to it. Maybe it had slipped through, or maybe she was leaving the weapon on the ground to be picked up later.

"Interesting, the Dominion, that was the craft based on the Archangel's design, correct?", she asked seemingly in an attempt to make casual conversation. He gave a guarded nod not believing her manufactured candor. "I see… were you originally slotted to be put on the Archangel until it went AWOL, as our reports state that it did during the war?"

Tch…should he be honest and say, he had been slotted to be on the Archangel –obvious keep the fact that it was because he was one of the top three Extendeds- or should he lie about it. If he was caught in the lie it would increase his consequences. Staring deep into the woman's and then glancing over at the golden-eyed man who hadn't said anything yet, had just been observing him with eyes of a predatory snake. Shani realized if he was going to get through this he would have to go for broke, "No, I wasn't supposed to join the Archangel, I was still just a nameless foot soldier at the time." Sure sweet and ambiguous.

"Where were you stationed when the Archangel went AWOL?"

"Near Gibraltar, in the skirmishes near there" he said his voice frosty and bored.

"Interesting." The woman said with genuine fascinationed, though he felt like it was because she knew something that she wasn't telling him and his response was illuminating the picture she had already begun to form in her head. "How did they decide to put you on the Dominion?"

"They didn't tell me anything specific." The topic change there was too swift, too sudden, too planned. They had gotten some of the information they needed and were now moving on. He felt like he had just gotten defeated and he didn't even know how. They were looming over him even though only the black haired man was actually taller than him, and he was hunched so far forward, staring into him as he leaned on his hands, that he would look shorter to the casual observer. His hand brushed his bang down over his left eye. However, there confidence and knowledge dwarfed his and it made him feel childlike and feckless. There when they spoke, he noticed, their tone had gotten more clipped, the space between their words short and he was being forced to pay attention to distinguish each were from the heap of sounds. They were forcing him off balance, he resettled himself and prepared for their next move, he leaned back casually without care, his arms slanted back behind the chair and his eye looking lazily toward a corner. After they spoke next he would ask what they said, he wouldn't let them get him too far off balance and instead he would try to tug at their impatience, maybe they would make a mistake but he doubted it would be that simple. Being arrogant and apathetic would have to only be the beginning if he were to topple them from their throne.

"Do you have any idea as to the reason?" The woman asked dissectingly.

"Hmmm?" he grunted looking over as though having been distracted looking at cracks in the wall or at some fascinating cluster of dust.

"Why do you think they transferred you to the Dominion" she asked not loosing any composure.

Sighing, he looked thoughtful for a moment "Maybe they just thought I was a good enough soldier" He knew that was no reason. Nobody paid attention to the individual talents of soldiers, no single soldier ever was moved separately of his unit, it was merely a myth propagated by marketers selling books or movies. However, it would be a reasonable thing to say if he pretended to be ignorant.

"Did you perform any special functions within the EAF military? Were you any different from the other soldiers that fought in the army?"

Again. Another too quick shift in topic. This was getting worrisome, suddenly it dawned on him, they were catching him in lies. They knew something about him and we pushing him only until they felt he outright lied to him. They were going to try to gut him opened when they exposed all his lies at once or they were testing whether anything he said was trustworthy. But what did they know? His hand brushed his bang down over his left eye. As far as he had been told all data about him had been…

Shit.

The chessboard suddenly reappeared but he didn't need it to tell him how bad off he was. He had lost the majority of his pieces and they had lost only a couple pawns. They currently had his king in check. He was caught and he knew it. That was their ploy, they knew that something was up with him because they didn't have any data on him. All the things he had said were normal and that was exactly the problem, he was not normal. There was nothing in his story that would explain why his data had been deleted, he need to give a reason for that or he would be in huge trouble. He would have to scramble for an excuse and he had just the opportunity to slip it in without seeming to be covering for himself, however, he didn't have time. If he delayed they would realize he was searching for a shield. "For a brief time I was drafted into a spy organization, they deleted my data and sent me into Gibraltar. I was later pulled due to belief that my talents were being misused."

The man with black hair sighed and Shani's purple eye was on him like a bullet, "You were never in a spy organization, they don't delete records they tamper them. If someone vanished it would attract attention. The group that did this didn't care if they were caught, or maybe they thought that if another group saw the data deletion they would think spy. And that group also knew if someone though spy, they would be completely wrong. Shani Andras, former soldier of the EAF, I understand that it may bring up bad memories but we need you to be honest. You were not a normal soldier, your too intelligent. I saw that flash of realization when you figured out our strategy. A perceptive mind you have on your shoulders, probably thought it was too much for a normal platoon. Perhaps they made you squad leader of a special forces squad in Rodnia?"

Shani almost smirked. It was bait, Special Forces didn't delete records they would just tell him he was lying to them. Were they recording this? Still he needed to a reason or he would be in trouble. His hand brushed his bang down over his left eye. "No." He said his voice dry and cold "You're a fool if you believe that an army of millions can be so responsive to the talents of its soldiers. It was a random sampling of all those with few family contacts. I don't have parents. No one would miss me if I "disappeared". I was placed into an extensive training program. Like a new military squad but in its testing stages. Nothing much occurred. Push ups every day, meals consisting of chemically prepared nutrient sludge, and then afterwards sent out to die. No more" There, that was just enough truth to satisfy but not enough for them to grasp what had actually occurred. The picture his words had given was vague and plausible but unimportant.

The serpent man looked pensive a moment, "Nothing more? And the reason you were give such an advanced Mobile Suit?"

"Simple testing. Give it to the person already to tied to the organization to possibly be a spy."

"You said 'nothing more' correct?" the man asked like lightning from an empty sky, a bullet from an unseen gun, "You're also, from reports and from what I have picked up in this conversation, not a big speaker. You don't add more words than are needed to answer the question. Than why say 'nothing more'?" His purple eye stared into him, he realize he had been caught he had tried to hard to deny something occurring that he had forgotten to keep up the "innocently ignorant" mask. A smirk crossed the onyx-maned serpent's face, "I think something did happen. What parts of what you said are true and what are lies? You're too smart not to realize a complete lie would be unbelievable, so some of what you said must have been true. Probably, some sort of elite group of people but what did they do to you in Rodnia Labs? Why won't you tell us! Do you fear repercussions? No, you don't care about repercussions, you just are afraid of having power." Shani almost winced as he felt like a leap of voltage shoot up from his spine and hover around the base of his brain. "You didn't have any power while you were in that facility did you? Now, you have information that could change the world, could shock a generation and deep down you're afraid of being placed into that chair of initiative. I understand. After being told when to eat, when to sleep, when to piss you lack confidence to act on your own prerogative. Tell me what happened there!"

Shani the man back a defiant glare and dug in his heels, "No."

The committee member sighed, granting Shani a discrete amount of pleasure in knowing he had gotten the man frustrated enough to make an unintentional gesture. "I see your quite adamant about protecting the information you have there. Is there some sort of deal which we could work out? I'm sure there is something that you and your friends want that, my group and I could provide."

This offer could be useful and he was wondering if he shouldn't cut his losses and make some sort of deal. At the very least he might be able to keep him, Oruga and Crot alive. Not that he particularly cared about what happened to the other two but chances were whatever happened to them would happen to him. However, he needed a clear idea of what to ask for, something that at the time he did not possess. He brushed his bang over his left eye. "First of all, Crot, Oruga, and I remain as soldiers in ZAFT forces and if a war erupts we will be just another division of soldiers. Second, our names will not be given, no information of any kind will be given about us. In fact, the person who told you was a former scientist in the facility who you captured during the war and is just now coming out about what occurred in Rodnia Laboratory." He thought for a moment trying to think if there were any more things he would need in order to make this deal. "That is all at the moment, however, I wish it to remain on the books that you still owe us."

"Agreed", the man said all too readily, "now please tell us what happened."

"We were experiments basically. We took several performance enhancing drugs along with steroids and some surgeries to enhance our abilities. I can't tell you the specifics of it since we were not told about any of the details, all I can say for sure is that we didn't have a choice and it was painful." Shani was completely calm and cool as he spoke of the events that happened, unbothered by recounting the trauma that he had been subjected too. He recalled that sometimes they would have to Extendeds fight each other during their training until one of the two was dead. He remembered the sound bones and tendons made when they were snapped. He talked for a long time about the things that happened but he also held back anything that might reflect on him personally. He gave nothing of his background, did not tell them he had been on death row as a traitor for smuggling munitions to the enemy. He spoke in generalities, in "we"s never in I's unless it was something he didn't remember. He also did not give any specific parameters for what the drugs did to him. He said that they enhanced his body and he mentioned the addiction they caused but held back the fact that they caused mental instability. He also didn't mention a certain procedure because he had never pieced together what it actually did. He had never felt different nor acted differently afterwards but it had been a horrendous procedure which had twisted his mind up like a beam of would in a tornado. It had been called "sowing".

The blacked haired man and then motherly but cold woman both looked at him intently. Suddenly the woman spoke up, "What about the people that worked there?"

Shani shrugged, "I never cared. But the feeling was probably mutual. We were experiments and toy soldiers and they were the kids playing with us. We were called 'Biological CPUs' so there thoughts about our humanity were quite low."

"You don't remember anyone in particular."

"Not until I was released and placed on the Dominion with Azrael, where I worked with Crot Buer and Oruga Sabnak."

The woman's white haired swayed like faint churning mist as she nodded her head, "And you were assigned to the Dominion because of your…abilities?"

"Yes, as the three Extended that managed to live through the experimentation, that was or assigned location." He said with an apathetic agreement, not giving them any confidence in his knowledge since, after all, most of what he was saying was ambiguous guess which he based off of foggy bits of conversation he had picked up as people talked like he wasn't there. Oruga or Crot might know more since they hadn't been wearing headphones at the time.

"I see. How was Azrael as a taskmaster?" she said, slanting the question a bit so that he knew the kind of answer she was looking for. Fortunately, the answer he had to give was the same as the answer that she wanted.

"Much like the scientists at Rodnia. We weren't human and were treated as such. If we didn't perform well in battle we were withheld the drugs we needed causing painful withdrawal symptoms. I didn't care... one master is the same as the next, someone you want to kill but lack the power to do so" There was a strange feeling of powerlessness wafting through his body, a sense of regret that he had never been able to escape Azrael until after he was dead. He compensated for the influx of emotion by chilling his voice even more to the point where it would have been a shock to no one to see a heartless mist wave sadly in front of his mouth.

A compassionate face covered the woman's features. The graceful curves of her face turning mournful and a slight empathetic pout appearing nervously from her lower lip. Shani didn't trust the candor of her sympathy anymore than he did the honesty of anything coming from these people, they were here for no other reason than to screw him down to the ground and make sure all his actions were in their best interest and not his.

The man shot a glance at his partner and than shifted his slit-pupiled eyes back to Shani, "What you have described is indeed saddening and we will begin dealing with the EAF who did this to you and try to get Rodnia to shut down. I'm sure with an appeal to the world, people will realize what was done in that laboratory was wrong and unethical and the EAF will be forced to shut it down for good. For too long have ears lain deaf to your suffering. Soon the world shall know your pain and finally you will receive your justice!" The man's voice was filled with power and his hand reached towards Shani before clenching into a fist when he said the word "Justice". Shani rolled his eyes. He wouldn't be shifted by rhetoric. He could see the man's plan now. He would use Rodnia as a way of shoving a dagger into the EAF and maybe, if he used that emotional, hurricane-style speaking on the masses, he could cause the EAF to fragment into a number of individual nations. Than ZAFT would be the solitary superpower, free to do as it wishes.

He didn't want to be a part of such empire building. "Are you finished?" his tone bitingly omniscient.

The man smiled, his grin matching Shani's tone in being confident in his knowledge, "Yes, of couse." Suddenly his hand extended forward again, this time seeking a handshake instead of Shani's self-control. "I'm Gilbert Duliandal. Sorry but I must ask if Shani Andras is your real name."

Shani looked wary a moment than gripped Dulindal's hand, "It is my real name as far as I'm concerned."

The two men shoke hands and their eyes met. Two rivals looked into each others eye. One golden eye looked into a purple one and a unhidden eye looked into one covered by green. Then they separated.

Outside again Shani stood a moment a looked across the city. He heard an noise and looked over at a window behind which was a number of TVs all showing the same video. Two men were grappling for a knife and both were trying to stab the other with it. Ironically, they both ended up being cut by the knife and both end up dying as the credits rolled and a preview for the next show of the series rolled.

* * *

"What are we going to do about them?" Committee Member Jule asked as soon as the door closed and Shani's footsteps had faded from the hallway. The darkness around them dissipate as the lights which until now had been turned off were switched on. Her silver hair glistened for a brief moment with the unfeeling glimmer of ice. "The three of them are smart and disloyal. They could become a liability fast."

Dulindal nodded, "They're all dangerous. And not just as pilots. Oruga, the fight he was in not withstanding, is quite popular and appears to have a good deal of charisma. Buer is dominating his computer science class, outstripping many of our _teachers_. And Shani just makes the whole situation worse."

"I agree. I'm mostly worried about Shani, though. You're correct in your assessment that he saw through our ploys. True it wasn't until it was too late but in all honesty no one could have talked their way out of the hole he started in. The fact that he realized as much as he did as quickly as he did… he could be dangerous." She was being perfectly frank. She didn't like people she couldn't predict or couldn't out think, and to that extent she didn't completely like Dulindal or this Shani boy.

"Yes. And he knows what were going to use the information for and I don't doubt he has an inkling of knowledge that he can be seen as a threat to us. He's logical and that's a problem. However, if he was by himself we could deal with him. He would never get support because he is antisocial and unlikable. He keeps his brilliance in his head so no one knows to follow him until it's too late. He also lacks the resources or the information gathering abilities to make us of what intelligence he has. So alone he isn't a threat."

Jule sighed as she stood and began to walk to the door, "But he's not alone."

"Precisely. However, we can't kill them either. Not yet at least" Dullindal followed Jule to the door.

"They are still useful?" She said skeptically. She didn't think there was… then it hit her. "Of course, we can use them as chips."

"I suppose you could put it like that, yes." Dulindal shrugged slightly opening the door for the woman. "We need to get Orb on our side in the coming times and what better way than to send them to Orb as a token of good faith?"

Suddenly a delicious grin crossed Jule's face, "Not only that but they could be damage control."

Dulindal looked at her quizzically, "How do you mean?"

"Send their mobile suits along with them. They could defend Orb in the event of an EAF attack, coerce Orb in the event of EAF diplomacy, and conquer Orb in the event all else fails. They would insure that Orb would be ours no matter the result."

"Ah, but will Orb let three mobiles suits into their country?" Dulindal said trying to counterpoint her.

"Three suits? What are three suits in the scheme of things? It would be perceived as more of a symbolic gesture of our wish to unite forces than as any sort of threat. Three conventional suits, even with Coordinator pilots could never be a threat to a nation. However, these are not conventional suits and definitely not conventional pilots either. They would be an effective force disguised as a pittance." She said the high aristocratic air in her voice playing gently against the ceiling of the hallway they had stepped into. The lights around them cast four pointed shadows neatly across the floor which walked into and away from each other as they moved through the empty corridor.

Dulindal smiled, "Indeed…" together the two committee members began to hammer out specific plans with all the care of jewelers to their craft. Every so often they would think the plan through, putting it to different pressures and possibilities, gently tapping it with mental hammers, until they were certain of its quality. Then they placed the timeline for its initiation and began to prepare. Though not before spending a small meeting with the committee heads to make certain they would have their support when the implementation began. Many of the old diehard opponents of Jule's tried to stop the idea but were defeated by weight of logic.


End file.
